AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly has taken responsibility for the crash that hindered Lance Stroll’s race in Barcelona last weekend, and is left ruing a “frustrating weekend.”
Gasly was out-qualified by team-mate Yuki Tsunoda for the second time this season in Spain as the AlphaTauri drivers occupied the seventh row of the grid, and the Frenchman made contact with Esteban Ocon on the opening lap, scuppering his pace from there on in.
He was running outside the points with just under 30 laps to go when he tried to go to the inside of Stroll into Turn One, but hit the Aston Martin round after the Canadian appeared to leave plenty of room on the inside.
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The 25-year-old ended the race in P13, while Tsunoda went on to beat Sebastian Vettel to the final point in 10th.
Gasly detailed his disappointing afternoon in Catalunya, and offered a hand of apology to Stroll for the incident with him.
“I’m extremely disappointed with today, it’s very frustrating. I had a small touch early on that damaged the car and from then on, I had no pace, we were losing downforce and sliding everywhere,” he explained.
“I take responsibility for the accident with Stroll, I was pushing it to the limit, so I want to apologise to Lance for that. We tried everything we could from then on, but at the end of the day there wasn’t much we could do.”
The hapless race compounded what had already been a tough weekend for AlphaTauri, who had to deal with an exhaust fire on Gasly’s car during free practice.
Nothing seemed to go their way in Spain, but the Rouen-born racer is eager to bounce back with a strong display on Monaco this weekend.
“It’s just frustrating because every race at the moment we seem to have something coming against us,” added Gasly.
“And we just can’t put in, not even a strong performance, just a normal performance, with the car that we have.
“I just want to get back out there and try to have a clean weekend. That’s what we aimed for coming here.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t really happen, with FP3, a couple of issues we had there, and again today.
“It’s part of the sport, it’s not always ideal. And at the moment we seem to have quite a lot of obstacles.
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“But we’re not the kind of people to give up and we’ll just work with the team and come back at it next weekend and with the best energy and ambitions to do well.”
Tsunoda and Gasly are 12th and 13th in the Drivers’ Standings respectively, while the AlphaTauri team are seventh in the constructors’ battle, two points clear of eighth-placed Haas.