Gasly says first lap turmoil in Styria just 'one of those things'

AlphaTauri's Pierre Gasly rued the opening lap pandemonium that led to his retirement from the Styrian Grand Prix, but said it was just "one of those things".

Gasly had enjoyed a strong qualifying and lined up sixth on Sunday's grid, with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc just behind in P7.

But after the start, on the exit of Turn 1, Leclerc's front wing clipped and punctured Gasly's left rear wheel.

As the Frenchman reduced his speed and drifted into the pack, a chain reaction ensued on the approach to Turn 3, with Alfa Romeo's Antonio Giovinazzi and Williams Nicholas Latifi also inadvertently making contact with the stricken AlphaTauri.

While Leclerc got away with just a front wing change, Gasly's crew was forced to retire the AT02 following a heavily damaged left rear wheel assembly.

The stewards deemed the first contact between Leclerc and Gasly a racing incident, but the Frenchman believed the Scuderia charger had slightly misjudged his position versus the AlphaTauri.

"I don’t think we touched the first time, but there was Alonso on the inside, I was a bit boxed in the middle and so we had to use the run-off,” Gasly told Motorsport.com.

"Then I was in the middle of the straight and I think he wanted to catch the slipstream, probably made a mistake, came behind me a bit early and touched the rear tyre.

"From there, basically, it was all over, everything went flying and that was it."

• Read also: F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2021 Styrian GP

Gasly said that the commotion that followed was just par for the course given the circumstances.

"I think I already had the left rear completely gone, so I was even struggling to go straight. And it was so slow, cars were coming from the right, the left, it was quite a tricky situation.

"But it all pretty much ended with Charles’ contact.

"To be fair, honestly, it’s one of these things…it won’t bring me the points we lost. I know it wasn’t on purpose but it just sucks that this has happened.

"It’s really different than if he [Leclerc] had jumped inside and completely rolled me over. But unfortunately, the result was not good for us and it’s a shame this happened.

"It sucks, but all we have to do is think about next week and try to learn from Yuki [Tsunoda]’s race. I think there were some positives and some negatives, so it’s business as usual."

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