Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri, Singapore, 2022

AlphaTauri “left a lot of points on the table” with strategy error – Gasly

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In the round-up: AlphaTauri admit they were too quick to put their drivers onto slick tyres as the track dried in the Singapore Grand Prix.

In brief

Gasly puzzled by team’s “massive risk”

Pierre Gasly said he was “very disappointed” with his tenth place finish in the Singapore Grand Prix, saying his team threw away a chance to score more points by pitting early for slicks on the drying track.

“We took a massive risk boxing early and lost some positions,” he said. “I don’t fully understand why we made this decision, so we’ll need to review everything and learn from this mistake. For sure we left a lot of points on the table today, so it hurts quite a bit.”

His team mate Yuki Tsunoda crashed out after switching to slicks, causing a Safety Car period in which several of Gasly’s rivals were able to jump ahead of him by making their pit stops while the race was neutralised.

“After all of the hard work put in by the team and drivers over the weekend, we have failed to maximise the opportunity to score good points with both cars tonight,” said technical director Jody Egginton. “This is due to our engineering team committing too early to the switch to dry tyres.

“This has cost track position for both drivers, with Yuki also unfortunately sliding off track soon after. This meant we have only got one car to the flag and come away with far less points than we should have.”

Albon frustrated after crash

Alexander Albon’s return to action in the Singapore Grand Prix ended early when he crashed out. He said it was a “confusing” incident as he did “nothing different from the previous lap.”

“However I just locked up on the front-left with the wet making it difficult to predict the brakes,” he explained. “Whilst there wasn’t an issue and ultimately it comes down to driver error, the brakes are very tricky in the wet and it’s hard to get them in the right window.”

Ricciardo hails best result of season

There was some cheer for Daniel Ricciardo in Singapore as he ticks down his final races at the end of a disappointing stint at McLaren. He scored his best result of the season with fifth place yesterday.

“I’m very happy,” he said. “I haven’t had a top five all year so I’m very pleased with that.

“I feel like some things fell in our favour today, but I also think we were very patient and mature. It was very tempting to jump on a slick and try to be a hero in the position we were in but I think we were just sensible, bided our time and that obviously allowed an opportunity with other cars, and then a Safety Car.”

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Comment of the day

The stewards’ explanation for Sergio Perez’s reprimand and penalty puzzled @Tommy-C:

Seriously weird wording there. ‘We don’t accept that conditions were a mitigating factor, but actually, we do so no penalty’. Since when has a wet track been a reason for a driver to fall unnecessarily far behind the safety car?

Everyone knows the rule. This appears to me to be the stewards trying desperately not to make the dreadfully unpopular decision to strip a driver of a win. The easy solution would have been to issue a drive through penalty. It seems like a silly precedent they’re setting here.
@Tommy-C

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On this day in motorsport

  • Born on this day in 1941: Andrea de Adamich, who made his F1 debut for Ferrari in the 1968 South African Grand Prix, and never raced for them in the world championship again

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11 comments on “AlphaTauri “left a lot of points on the table” with strategy error – Gasly”

  1. As the Red Bull B team, they did exactly as asked. See how the slicks were working. Back other drivers into VER. And let VER by without holding him up at all. Looked to me like AT executed perfectly.

    1. Silliness. Russell provided the data for everyone. Please don’t add to the conspiracy noise that is already too prevalent here.

    2. @jimfromus – pastaman is correct everyone was looking at Russell for the data to switch. And Max didn’t need Gasly help as he made many overtakes without any help.

    3. @jimfromus I noticed also, both AT drivers was quick to get out of Max’s way with zero defending, yuki even got off his racing line ridiculously early to make like even easier for max . Its Ridiculous that rb have such an advantage with B second team ready to assist the energy drink giant.

      seriously hope Honda buys AT because TR/AT are a useless midfield team that is a doormat for RB..
      There is a reason why they paid for Yuki to stay at the team next season so there is some hope of a takeover

  2. The biggest reason why AT (more like, Gasly) lost time here is because he couldn’t benefit from going slightly warm slicks vs. extremely cold slicks on a greasy track because Tsunoda crashed his car, negating any possible advantage.

    1. +1 i think your right – @mxmxd

  3. Nice tyre marks.

    While I see where the COTD comes from, I’m okay with issuing a 5-sec penalty only for the latter infringement rather than both.
    However, the precedent set by this decision means possible similar future situations should get equal treatment.

    1. However, the precedent set by this decision means possible similar future situations should get equal treatment.

      And please both during the SC and during the formation lap (for all cars).

  4. All in all I think the 10 car length rule is just stupid, it’s not actually properly manageable so it becomes a judgement call rather than a distinct line to be crossed. They really need to make the limit a time interval which might mean the gap is a little larger than 10 car lengths on slower tracks but at least it gives the cars a proper delta to follow. I see no issue with slightly bigger gaps being allowed as the field will compress anyway when the safety car comes in like it does every time.

    1. the gap is a little larger than 10 car lengths on slower tracks

      You mean on ‘faster (sections of the) tracks’.

      The reason for the maximum gap is pretty clear; they want to keep the cars together so the rest of the track is clear to work on, and there will be no erratic accelerating and braking which could also be dangerous.

      1. Yeah, I got that mixed up but the theory is as below for anyone following what I was on about with the gap varying. It’s just the concertina effect you see at racing speed where cars appear closer together in distance at corners but further apart as they accelerate to speed. I was just highlighting if you moved from a visual scale of 10 cars which is impossible to measure to using a specific time interval then the actual distance between cars will vary based on speed when using a time gap to measure how far they should be spaced.

        So for example and taking into account converting mph to metres per second is around 45%.

        At 50mph they would be about 45m apart because it takes 2 seconds to travel that far (50*0.45*2s). If we take a F1 car as 5.5m then that’s 8 car lengths.
        At 80mph they would be 72m apart apart at 2 seconds or 13 car lengths.

        I personally feel it’s better to have a definitive line to be crossed that nets you a penalty than a steward getting to decide what they think is more than 10 car lengths. So taking that concept into consideration you could decide on a time interval for the weekends safety car based on it’s maximum speed in conditions because the fastest it can go will be the largest gap for cars. I have no idea what maximum speeds the safety car reaches for the record on the straights.

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