AlphaTauri scores second points in Jeddah thanks to Pierre Gasly – The Frenchman battled through “the most painful laps of my career “
Pierre Gasly was the only iron in the fire for AlphaTauri at the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. An iron that faced unusual and extremely painful hurdles at the Formula One race in Jeddah.
“For me, the last 15 laps were the most painful of my entire career,” the Frenchman reported after the race. “I don’t know what happened there with my intestines. But I died in the car, I was screaming around in pain and I was just happy that the race was done and we secured P8.”
“My bowels were hurting under braking and in every left turn … I always felt like someone was stabbing me in the gut. It was not nice. It was mainly on the right side,” Gasly continued. Under these aggravating circumstances, it is considered heroic that Gasly made it to the finish line at all.
“In the last five laps it was just survival and I was in massive pain. I was just counting down the laps,” admits the AlphaTauri driver. All the more amazing that it was enough for eighth place and thus the first points of the still young season for the Italian team. But that was not the only hurdle.
Pierre Gasly struggles with gut and safety car
In addition, Gasly and AlphaTauri were also unlucky with the safety car period at the start of the race. Bernd Mayländer pulled out at an inopportune time for the team after Nicholas Latifi’s accident, shortly after the pit stop.
“We had very unfortunate timing with the pit stop. We dropped all the way back to P14,” Gasly lamented as a result. Before the safety car phase, he was still driving his AlphaTauri around in tenth place in the points. That makes his recovery to P8 all the more remarkable. Gasly also says of eighth place: “I’m really happy about that. “
Things went even worse for team-mate Yuki Tsunoda on this Sunday in Jeddah. The Japanese could not even start the race. Already on the lap to the starting grid, his AT03 let him down.
Yuki Tsunoda not on the grid at all in Jeddah
“We had a problem with the oil pressure on Yuki’s car, so we had to stop. We have to leave now and investigate the cause,” team boss Franz Tost revealed. For Tsunoda, this was not the first technical problem of the weekend. He had already experienced reliability problems in qualifying.
“It was a really frustrating weekend with reliability problems for me. First we missed qualifying and then today I think we had a problem with the drivetrain on the way to the grid,” Tsunoda says.
AlphaTauri has a long to-do list to work through after this race. The technical problems need to be sorted out as soon as possible, and Gasly’s physical ailments also give cause for concern. At least the Frenchman, who will see a doctor as soon as possible, provided a motivational boost with the first points of the year.
But Tost warns: “We have to catch up in terms of pace, because we are not yet at the level we expected.” On the other hand, there is joy about Gasly’s eighth place, about which Tost says: “That’s the maximum we could achieve today.” Especially when you consider the circumstances under which Gasly fought for this result.