Pierre Gasly expressed frustration with AlphaTauri after being brought in early for slick tyres during Formula 1’s Singapore Grand Prix.
Gasly held seventh prior to the crossover being reached for slicks, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and the Aston Martin drivers, but was brought in before his rivals to make the change.
As a consequence he slipped down the order and ultimately classified at the foot of the top 10.
Ricciardo went on to take fifth spot, with Lance Stroll sixth, as both benefited from mistakes further up the order by Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
“We had everything in our hands and we threw it away because we decided to box too early,” said Gasly.
“There was no communication, no dialogue, which I don’t fully understand why. And we took a gamble in a moment where we didn’t need to.
“We boxed, everybody stayed out on track, and we got overcut by four cars.”
“Daniel was behind us, far behind, [but] stayed out on track, as we should have done it, and finished P5. So it’s, yeah, nine points that we lost and nine important points. So yeah, I’m just sad. And not happy with our performance.”
AlphaTauri drew level on points with Haas in the Constructors’ Championship but has now slipped to ninth overall after being overhauled by Aston Martin.
“I mean, in the position we were in you are ahead of your two main rivals, you have track position in Singapore, it’s drying conditions, you know, the warm up is going to be tricky… I don’t see the point of risking it like that,” said Gasly. “And we just gave our position away.
“When do we get opportunities to score P5? You know, this year it happened once in 18 races. So now it’s frustrating because we’re are pushing really, really hard and we just didn’t a right call.”
