Pierre Gasly had high expectations for his home race at Paul Ricard, but the AlphaTauri driver's pointless run to P12 on Sunday was a far cry from his hopes.
Gasly's disappointing weekend kicked off with a shock Q1 exit from qualifying, the reason for which he could not explain.
From P14 on the grid, the local hero who had his own grandstand at Paul Ricard made little progress over the course of the afternoon which he concluded 12th, although just a few seconds outside of the points as he was the third car in a group of cars led by Aston martin's Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel.
Gasly pointed once again to an ill-handling car as the root cause of his under-performance.
"We tried to fight to get back into the points and what we managed is P12, which clearly isn’t the performance we would have liked," said Gasly after the race.
"The fans and spectators made it a special weekend to put a big smile on my face, but I am extremely disappointed in the performance we showed.
"If I knew what the problem was, we could have changed it, but there was just a lot of sliding around and a lack of grip, especially in the high-speed corners.
"I tried everything I could in the car to push, changing lines, but there was nothing that clicked.
"Obviously, I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but based on the pace we had we need to review to understand why Friday went so well and from then on it was a struggle.
"We finished only 3 seconds behind P10, so we aren’t miles away, but there are no points for P11 or P12.
"It is now important to try to understand this new package. It will take some time, but it is quite tight in the midfield, so we have to find the solutions."
On the other side of the AlphaTauri garage, Yuki Tsunoda had qualified an impressive P8 on Saturday.
But a clash with Alpine's Esteban Ocon on the opening lap of the race led to damage that only got worse with each passing, forcing the Japanese driver to call it a day on lap 17.
"I watched back the onboard and I definitely left enough space, but he lost control," commented Tsunoda.
"It ruined our whole race and 5 seconds is not enough in the end, when he continued with no damage, even getting some points.
"I know in racing these things happen, but it is such a shame especially after such a good qualifying, and I feel bad for the team, also everyone back at the factory, to have it end like this after all the work they’ve done."
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