Gasley: Sainz put himself in danger, not just me

Both Alpine drivers had bad luck during qualifying in Montreal, as rivals interfered with them on track, for which they were subsequently fined. But Pierre Gasly was much more unlucky, he found himself in a very risky situation created on the track by Carlos Sainz.

Pierre Gasley (17e): “Honestly, I don’t think there are words that can express all my frustration and annoyance. You put in so much effort in practice, preparing for the weekend’s main events and in qualifying you try to give it your all.

We did everything right, and that lap of mine was good enough, I was able to show a sixth result in the first session, despite losing a few tenths due to traffic. At least I would have been in the top ten, but Carlos Sainz acted completely wrong on track.

I was on a fast lap and he stayed on the racing line, which is completely unacceptable, so I just don’t have the words to describe what happened there.

In qualifying we rely on the information we get from the team, but in preparation for the Canadian Grand Prix we knew this is a dangerous circuit because before the last chicane of the circle there is a cluster of cars here and everyone interferes with each other. other.

In such situations, it is necessary to show more attention and in any case deviate from the race track. But not only did Carlos interfere with me, it was also a very dangerous situation. What if I hit it at 300 km/h? He put himself in danger, not just me.

This put me in 17th place and this will definitely affect my race. Of course Sainz should be fined, although in any case we will not be returned to the positions we could rise to today.

Esteban Ocon (6th): “Personally I’m in a good mood, qualifying went great, especially when you remember where we were at the end of practice. We didn’t work that much on the track and we didn’t run intermediate tires at all in the morning, so we had no preparation.

I was relieved when I made it to the last session, and the fact that I was able to climb up to 6th position is a special achievement overall. Many thanks to the team – we did everything that needed to be done and our efforts paid off.

I repeat, I didn’t have much preparation so I just went to the track and tried to remember my experience from last year on this track. And again this morning I spent an hour and a half watching the recordings from the on-board video cameras on this track and thinking about what approach to take.