Pierre Gasly had a frightening incident in the pits at the Chinese Grand Prix. When the Frenchman came in for the first pit stop, he had a terribly slow change of tires that lasted for over 19 seconds. Amid this sluggish stop, the Alpine crew gave him the green light to go but they had not fitted his rear left tire correctly. This made Gasly stop his car instantaneously after he intended to exit his pit box. However, the result of this stop-start of the #10 car was that a team mechanic fell backward and got a light injury. The stewards have deemed this incident ‘unsafe’ and have imposed a fine of $10,670 (€10,000) on the Enstone-based team.
According to the FIA document of the stewards’ decision on the said incident on Reddit, this was a breach of Article 3.2 of the Sporting Regulations. The document stated that Alpine‘s pit stop of Gasly’s car did not ensure it “complied with the conditions of eligibility and safety during the race”.
During the race, Gasly was quick to ask on the radio if the mechanic was alright or not. The Frenchman’s race was already in the doldrums as he could not recover enough to get closer to the top 10. After the race, the 28-year-old explained what happened from his perspective at that first stop.
According to PlanetF1, Gasly stated, “Yeah, quite scary, actually. My green light, the light went green so I dropped the clutch, but then it went red straightaway. And then I saw him [the fallen mechanic] in the mirror, and saw the wheel wasn’t on. The mechanic is fine, which I was a bit scared of.”
It could have been quite injurious for any of the pit crew, had Gasly not stopped in time in the box. However, Alpine would want to tighten their pit stop operations, as it did not do them any favors during the race.
Pierre Gasly and Alpine leave China empty-handed but with some hope
Pierre Gasly did not have the best time at the Chinese GP. His teammate, Esteban Ocon, had an upgrade package on his car that was initially slated for the Miami GP for both cars. Gasly now has to wait for this package until the race in Miami. Thus, he was expecting to be on the back foot in Shanghai.
Regardless, the #10 driver did a fantastic job of staying in the fight with Ocon and the rest of the lower midfield pack. However, his maverick effort got undone by the slow pitstop and some skirmishes with Alex Albon. At the chequered flag, Gasly finished in P13, which he claimed to be a decent result.
Since he was only seven seconds off Ocon and 10 seconds off P10, Gasly feels they made good progress in China. In the first four races of the year, Alpine have been at the back of the field and have not been able to fight or attack any cars. However, the Chinese GP has given the Enstone-based outfit some hope of recovery.
Both Gasly and Ocon went on the attack in Shanghai and were able to stay in contention to score points. Given this is a long season, with 19 more races to come, Alpine will hope to improve further and start scoring points more often in the upcoming races.
