Finishing at the bottom of the standings is never a good feeling, even if it means one has created a new record. Pierre Gasly, however, would be feeling especially proud of himself for not bothering the scoreboard in the unofficial ‘World Destructors’ Championship’ which keeps a tab of drivers who add to the damage repair bills for their teams.
2024 has been the most competitive season of the ground-effect era, and there have been several crashes in multiple rounds this campaign. After 21 rounds, however, Gasly has not had a single incident. Not even a tire puncture.
If he manages to have a clean triple-header to cap off the year, Gasly will become the first full-time driver in F1 history to have cost his team $0 in damages. With so much focus on the ones binning and beaching their cars every other weekend, this is a staggering stat that has escaped the attention of most of the F1 community, barring a few data nerds on social media who pointed it out.
Pierre Gasly is set to become the first full-time driver in F1 history to not cost his team a single dollar in damages over an entire season.
Not even a single puncture, cracked chassis, or broken wing in 2024.
This is an insane stat that isn’t being spoken about pic.twitter.com/y8bvE10kBR
— ۟ (@hamiltonprop_) November 17, 2024
In contrast, Gasly’s teammate Esteban Ocon has cost Alpine more than $1 million, with the chance to add more. Ocon’s races have mostly been incident-free, but a near collision with Gasly in Monaco which resulted in a crash into the barriers increased the amount of damage to his name.
Out of the 23 drivers who have driven in 2024, Gasly is 23rd in this Destructors’ Championship list, with the next full-time driver above him being Valtteri Bottas, who made Sauber pay $125k.
At the top, there are the usual suspects. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez has not been able to contribute to the Milton-Keynes-based team’s Constructors’ title tally this season, but will likely finish P1 in the destructors. With $4.8 million spent in crashes, Perez leads second-placed Alex Albon in this unwanted list by around $200k.
