Even starting from 17th place, Pierre Gasly was bold in Monaco and gained positions on the track, but was left out of the scoring zone after AlphaTauri's mistakes during the two pit-stops
Pierre Gasly left the Monaco GP, which was won by Sergio Pérez last Sunday (29th), with the feeling that he deserved at least one point. The AlphaTauri driver, who started only 17th, was the first to dare to change extreme rain tires for intermediate ones, and made sensational overtaking passes over Guanyu Zhou and Daniel Ricciardo at a time when the track conditions were very complicated. Still, he finished one position above the scoring zone.
"I told the team, 'we are 17th, so be prepared because I have nothing to lose from here,'" he revealed. "I have to say, it was very exciting. I had a lot of fun, driving these cars in these conditions and on this track. I stopped right away because I didn't want to be on the same strategy as the others," he said.
Gasly emphasized the fun he felt in the car throughout the race, on a track that is already known for its high degree of difficulty in overtaking - a degree that became even greater after the rain that fell on Monte Carlo.
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"We took some risks, we gambled and I'm satisfied with our mentality, especially starting from where we were," he explained. "I had a lot of fun trying to find different lines, trying to find some space in Monaco between these walls," he pointed out.
However, despite all Gasly's efforts, the AlphaTauri - once again - was not up to the task of its driver. The Frenchman managed to set a strong pace that would probably have taken him to the points, but his team made mistakes in the two pit-stops it made and hindered Pierre's progress. At the finish line, Yuki Tsunoda's teammate crossed just 0s7 behind Sebastian Vettel, the last among those who scored.
"Obviously, I'm a little sad not to be awarded a point at the end, because I felt I probably deserved it," he lamented. "But we lost a good amount of time in our first pit-stop, 6s or 7s, and another 3s in the second pit-stop. That was 10s of the race we lost, which probably cost us a point in the end. There are a lot of positives to take away from the weekend by looking at the practice sessions and the race," he enthused.
Finally, Gasly commented on the great overtaking races of the day, over Zhou and Ricciardo. The Chinese lost the position in the first sector, on the descent into the hairpin, while the Australian was overtaken just before the S of the Pool when he lost the braking point and allowed Pierre to pass on the inside of the track. Both were still using blue stripe tires, which made the job easier for the Frenchman - who still needed a creative way to pass on the tight Monegasque track.
"I was much faster than those guys, I just needed to calm down," he explained. "If the driver is defending well, then you have no room on the left and no room on the right, so I had to be creative. That's what I tried to do, and at the end of the day F1 drivers are like artists, you always have to find new ideas - I tried to think of unusual places to overtake and it worked," he finished.