Pierre Gasly’s has been given a drive-through penalty and two licence penalty points for driving too fast when the Japanese Grand Prix was red-flagged but his “shock” at seeing a truck on the racing line helped mitigate the sanction.
Gasly had to pit at the end of the first lap of the Suzuka race after hitting an advertising board brought onto the track when Carlos Sainz crashed in miserable conditions.
The safety car was deployed and Gasly was catching up to the pack when the race was red-flagged, which happened just as Gasly was speeding past a recovery vehicle that had been despatched to retrieve Sainz’s Ferrari.
Gasly and other drivers were furious that the truck was on the circuit given the track conditions were so bad and visibility was atrocious.
However, the stewards’ immediate focus was on Gasly’s driving after passing the truck.
The Japanese GP stewards said Gasly “exceeded 200 km/h on multiple occasions” and reached a peak of 251km/h.
Gasly apparently admitted that he drove too fast and could have endangered marshals or encountered an obstacle on track.
For clarity, as discussed with the stewards, the penalty was given for going too fast between T14 & T15 which isn’t where the tractor was, I slowed down, but not enough and I take the blame for it. (1/2)
— PIERRE GASLY 🇫🇷 (@PierreGASLY) October 9, 2022
As for T12, I was respecting the delta time under SC (expected speed during SC) approaching T12, the red flag was then displayed too late for me to react & brake safely with the tractor & marshal right on the racing line. (2/2)
— PIERRE GASLY 🇫🇷 (@PierreGASLY) October 9, 2022
But the stewards conceded that Gasly was still not driving at full speed and also opted to take into consideration “the shock the driver experienced on seeing a truck on the racing line in the corner of the incident”.
The deployment of the truck is understood to be subject to a separate FIA review.
As Gasly’s penalty is applied after the race he receives a 20-second penalty in lieu of a drive-through.
It barely changes his result as he only finished 17th and is instead demoted to 18th.
The two penalty points briefly take him to nine, three short of a race ban, but he will lose two points tomorrow anyway as 12 months have passed since an incident with Fernando Alonso in the Turkish Grand Prix.
That means Gasly will only have seven penalty points when he begins the United States Grand Prix weekend in two weeks’ time.
