(Motorsports news) Over the course of the race, the Alpine driver received three five-second penalties for exceeding track restrictions. Pierre Gasly took the lead during a pit break, while the others were added to his race time, dropping him to 12th place behind the also penalized Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll.

“It wasn’t a good day,” the Frenchman admitted when questioned about his difficult race. “I made too many errors with the track limits, which cost me 15 seconds. So I can only be disappointed in myself, because obviously we’re talking about a few centimetres, which is nothing, but I paid a high price for it and lost the points.” So all I have to do now is learn from this, Gasly commented.

Gasly confessed that one of the issues was that the FIA’s track limitations warnings arrived too late, via his engineer. “It was the story of the whole race,” he told me. “I have no excuses because it’s the same for everyone, and at the end of the day, I obviously took too many. I don’t know how many track limits there have been the whole race, but we were always two steps behind from what’s happening, and I think it wasn’t an easy day for us.”

Gasly, like the other drivers, found the race physically demanding: “It was the toughest race of the year.” It was definitely quite hot in the automobile, as well as physically demanding. I had a feeling it would be like that. “And I know I’m working hard in the gym and have one of the best physical conditions in the paddock.” As a result, I usually embrace these circumstances.

“And I know it’s challenging for everyone, but today I just didn’t do a good enough job, and I need to need to learn from this track limits story.” Meanwhile, Gasly’s teammate Esteban Ocon, who was heavily penalized for exceeding track limits in Austria, insists he worked hard to prevent a repetition. The Frenchman eventually came in sixth place.

“I had one on lap one of the race,” that’s what he claimed. “I was thinking, if we start like that, it’s going to be a pain!” I got a snap in the middle of the corner and went wide. After that, I believe I stayed quite a while.

“I felt like I wasn’t even touching the white line anymore, staying in the middle to avoid something like Austria. I had a fantastic first lap. I passed Lando [Norris], Pierre, and I was just passing by when we were boxing and stuff like that. So I didn’t waste any moment in terms of overtaking and all that, so I think it is a pretty well maximised race.”

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