Gasly at risk of race ban: 'I'm not a silly or dangerous driver!'

Pierre Gasly heads into the new season with a new start at a new team, Alpine - but nonetheless faces an immediate risk of missing a race thanks to old misdemeanours.

During his final campaign with AlphaTauri, the French driver managed to pick up ten penalty points on his superlicence, which means he's just two away from incurring an automatic one-race ban.

His penalty points won't start to expire until May 22, so if he gets two more points before then Gasly will become the first driver since the system was introduced to earn a mandatory ban as a result.

• Read also: Gasly 'quite embarrassed to be on verge of penalty points race ban

Half the points were for on-track incidents with Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel, but the others have been a result of relatively mild infractions.

He was penalised for driving too fast under a red flag in Japan, failing to stay within ten car lengths of the car in front behind the safety car in the United States GP, and for track limit offences in Austria.

“I try not to think of myself as not as a silly driver or dangerous driver,” Gasly told Motorsport.com last month.

“I try to be careful with all the, let’s say, silly penalty points you could lose with procedures and stuff like that," he said, adding: I try to be on top of that.

"I really hope we can have a review on the whole system," he said. "I do believe I’m not going to be the only one in trouble if we keep it that way, and it will be a shame to see four or five racing drivers banned for a race."

Gasly said the extended length of the season was one of the problems with the current penalty points system. "When it was introduced, we had only 19 or 20 races [a year].

"Now some guys are only four points away, with 24 races and six sprints - so 30 races a year," he pointed out. "So clearly it will make sense to get more points on this licence."

Although Gasly said that he was confident "that the FIA will look into this and find solutions to make it more fair for everyone", the governing body has not made any moves on the issue so far during the winter off-season.

The other drivers with penalty points heading into 2023 (and the date that the first points come off the current total) are:

• Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) - 8pts - 2pts expire on April 9
• Alex Albon (Williams) - 7pts - 2pts expire on March 26
• Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) - 6pts - 3pts expire on May 8
• Esteban Ocon (Alpine) - 5pts - 2pts expire on March 20
• Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo) - 4pts - 1pt expires on March 26
• Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) - 4pts - 2pts expire on July 3
• George Russell (Mercedes) - 4pts - 2pts expire on July 10
• Kevin Magnussen (Haas) - 3pts - 2pts expire on May 8
• Lando Norris (Sergio Perez) - 3pts - 1pt expires on July 10
• Sergio Perez (Red Bull) - 2pts - Expire on October 3
• Max Verstappen (Red Bull) - 2pts - Expires on November 13
• Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) - 1pt - Expires on October 9

Valtteri Bottas, Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz all currently have no penalty points on their superlicence heading into the new year.

And of course, rookie drivers Oscar Piastri, Nyck de Vries and Logan Sargeant also start with a clean sheet.

De Vries did take part in one race in 2022 at Monza subbing for Albon, but incurred no penalty points. Neither did Nico Hulkenberg when he sat in for Sebastian Vettel at Aston Martin in the first two races of the season. He will now return full-time with Haas in 2023.

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