Pierre Gasly can’t understand why he had to let Esteban Ocon pass again shortly before the end – But he and the team see it as logical
“What the hell? Why did you do that? I’m on fresher tyres and would have got him anyway!” – “We’ll discuss it in the office, please swap.” – Pierre Gasly was annoyed by a stall order at Alpine at the Japanese Grand Prix. He had to let teammate Esteban Ocon past on the last lap.
The former Red Bull driver followed the order but is very frustrated. In his opinion, it was not agreed. His team and Ocon see it completely differently. The instruction was completely logical.
So what was going on in the Alpine team? Ocon, who started the race from 14th on the grid, was involved in a collision right at the beginning and suffered a puncture. Thanks to the safety car, he managed to rejoin the field. He got rid of the medium hard tyre at the repair stop and was to finish the race on hard.
On lap 28, he came in for his only regular stop to put on another set of the C1 compound, the hardest available in the Pirelli contingent. He was to finish the race on this set – almost half the distance.
Gasly didn’t get off to a good start from P12 and initially lost positions, but then made up ground after ground, also thanks to the pit stops of drivers who had started on the soft tyres. Until lap 18 he drove the medium C2, then he changed to the hard tyre compound. Already on lap 34 he stopped again for a set of C1. As a result, he fell behind Ocon.
He closed the gap of almost ten seconds with six laps of younger tyres within ten laps. Ocon pulled to the side and let Gasly pass. Gasly took the place with the words: “Okay, I’ll try Alonso”. The Aston Martin driver, whose tyres were nine laps older than Gasly’s (and even three laps older than Ocon’s C1), was another nine seconds ahead of Gasly in eighth.
Lightning hits Gasly out of the blue
Even this swap of places happened somewhat reluctantly, as Ocon first made sure. “If he doesn’t get the position, he gives it back, right? Can you confirm that?” he radioed his engineer Josh Peckett before letting him pass. Gasly, on the other hand, didn’t ask and wasn’t told – a swap back was obviously out of the question for him.
He quickly caught up with Alonso, but not fast enough. With two laps to go, the gap was still four seconds – too much for him to catch up on his own. So on the penultimate lap, the Frenchman was instructed by his race engineer Karel Loos to let Ocon pass again.
He was completely shocked and resisted with the opening sentence. When instructed to swap places anyway, he replied: “Are you serious? I started in front of him and was in front the whole race.” Loos replied, “The instruction comes from the pit wall. Please change in turn 16. “
After crossing the finish line, Gasly was instructed to say no more. Accordingly, he remained silent for the entire out lap. It was only on entering Parc Ferme, when he was instructed where to park his car, that he remarked again sarcastically, “Yeah, we’ll stop here. I understand. I understand what you are doing.”
After the race he remarks: “This was not discussed before the race. With the strategy they had planned, it was clear that Esteban would undercut me at some point, but my pace was better and I would have overtaken him [even without team orders] because I had the fresher tyres. There was never any question of us having to swap positions because I started in front and was always in front.”
“Tenth and ninth or ninth and tenth is the same for a team, but I definitely didn’t expect that. And I don’t really understand it either because I was the front car. We will have to talk about it. “
Team disagrees: All commonplace
Interim team boss Bruno Famin sees it very differently: “To get the best team result, we left Pierre in front of Esteban to have the chance to overtake Fernando, even if it was small. It wasn’t possible [in the end], so it’s quite normal to swap back.”
So the talks with Gasly will revolve around whether communication should have been clearer. “That’s the point we need to look at, to be completely transparent. I don’t know when exactly what was said. We need to clarify that.”
“Sometimes we have communication problems because the radio signal is not so good. Or sometimes the engineer thinks he has made himself clear, but the driver may not have understood because he was concentrating on something else. “
Lap 35 – we’re in with Pierre. He’s bolting on another new set of yards.
Esteban – P9
Pierre – P11 Alpine JapaneseGP pic.twitter.com/VXmArY5MNO– BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) September 24, 2023
“So we have to check if the driver has understood the information correctly. Either way, the manoeuvre was done in the team’s interest and I have no doubt that both drivers agree with it.”
“If we have to do it differently in the next races, they will do it. They know that and there is no tension. It’s just about running the race.”
He insists there are no problems between the drivers and that he understands they are fighting for the best possible personal result. “That’s what they’re paid for, after all. But they are also paid to get the best team result.”
“Of course, under the stress of racing, we may make a few statements that come out a bit strong, but I have absolutely no doubt that the drivers are on the same page. “
Ocon: That’s the way it’s always been done
They weren’t, at least immediately after the race. Esteban Ocon says: “I’ve been with this team for four years now. And the rule has always been, if a driver gets the position, he has to take the place in front of him to keep it.” In this case, that was Alonso in eighth place.
“Otherwise you just give the place back to your teammate. That’s what we’ve always done. If I’m on the other side, of course I do the same.” Even though he prefers the real battle on the track, he adds.
“I’m more of an old-school guy and I would never ask to swap positions. But I also understand the point of view of the team, which tried to take Fernando’s position to score more points. Unfortunately, we didn’t succeed. “
Back in the points after a good recovery drive. Today was about teamwork and both cars in the points is a good result for us. Still a lot of work to do, we won’t stop pushing.
Arigato gozaimasu, Suzuka. pic.twitter.com/EuAUXgt8Ed
– Esteban Ocon (@OconEsteban) September 24, 2023
He doesn’t accept the argument that Gasly was the faster car in this case because of the younger tyres: “It’s not really relevant. You can be as fast as you want. If you don’t have that out on the track, you never know who’s in front. And until then, I was in front. Of course we will discuss what we could have done better.”
He stresses that this rule already existed in the days of Daniel Ricciardo and Fernando Alonso and that it was applied. Yet he himself is no child of sadness on this issue: at the sprint race in Brazil in 2022, there was an inconsistency with Fernando Alonso, for which both drivers were severely criticised by the then team boss Otmar Szafnauer.
