Pierre Gasly says a sudden electrical issue when AlphaTauri attempted to fire up his car before the race nearly caused his retirement from the Belgian Grand Prix even before it had started!
Gasly was set to launch his race from P8 on the grid but the Frenchman was a no show when the formation lap got underway as the drama played out in the AlphaTauri garage where his crews frantically tried to fire up his AT03.
At the end of the day, Gasly was happy with his productive two-stop strategy and run to P9, but admitted the pre-race turmoil had left him "fuming".
"I'm extremely pleased with the race we executed," he told Sky Sports F1.
"I was fuming at the start of the race, because we were lining up in the pits.
"I'm not too sure exactly what's happened but we had an electrical problem and the car would not switch on.
"We had to push the car back to the garage and at that time, they told me we may not take part in the race, and 90 seconds before the race start the car came alive again."
Forced to chase from behind, Gasly progressed up to P11 after his first pitstop, and then battled his way into the top ten after his final switch from the hard to medium tyre.
"I'm even surprised that we made it back to the top 10, especially after the last couple of races," he commented. "I'm extremely happy about it.
"We definitely made the right calls in terms of strategy today, undercuts and being quite aggressive.
"I think Alex [Albon] did help us quite a bit towards the end of the race by blocking the others, so we just managed to benefit from fresh air, use the pace of the car when I was alone on track and make the right strategy call."
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