02 December 2023 , 13:15
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Pierre Gasly has criticised Lewis Hamilton after the pair were involved in a clash during the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi.
At Turn 6, Gasly suffered a wheel lock-up with Hamilton bearing down on him and the Brit was unable to avoid making contact with his rival. Gasly immediately complained over the team radio, stating: "He pushed me, hit me."
Hamilton also told his team: "I've just damaged my front wing. He locked up ahead of me." The incident was later investigated by the stewards, who ultimately decided not to punish Hamilton.
"Car 10 [Gasly] locked its front right tyre into turn six, resulting in that car approaching the turn on a slightly different line at a slightly lower speed which was obviously unexpected by the driver of Car 44 [Hamilton]," read the official decision.
"Car 44 made light contact with the rear of car 10 in the turn. The stewards determine that no driver was wholly or predominantly to blame." However, Gasly blames the incident for his disappointing 13th placed finish as it broke his diffuser and caused him to lose "quite a lot of downforce" for the rest of the race.
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"There were a couple of things that didn't go our way," he explained. "At the start I had a really good move into Turn 6, overtaking Lewis and Checo [Perez] but Checo clipped the back of my car. So I had the first bit of damage and a couple of laps later Lewis finished me.
"He just drove into the back of my car, broke all the diffuser, so from there on it was kind of damage limitation and we were losing quite a lot of downforce. Then after there were a couple of things which should have gone slightly different but then we will discuss with the team about it.
Pierre Gasly was involved in a clash with Lewis Hamilton at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Bob Kupbens/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)"I don't think it would have changed because the damage was already done with the diffuser, but clearly not our day." Reflecting on the campaign as a whole, Gasly believes Alpine will start 2024 "with much stronger foundations" than they did this year.
"Overall I'm really pleased," he added. "Because changing teams and coming to my first season with Alpine it was always going to be quite difficult at the start and quite tricky. Takes some months before you really find your feet, into a new car, into a new organisation with new people, with new engineers around you but I think overall we did a good job.
"We really became stronger and stronger months after months. Second part of the year was definitely better and really happy with the mindset and mentality I am seeing inside the team. I know for next year we will start with much stronger foundations than I was 10 months ago in Bahrain."