F1 driver holds crunch talks with team amid threat of never-before-seen race ban

17 June 2023 , 18:38

993     0

Pierre Gasly came close to triggering an F1 race ban (Image: Getty Images)

Alpine held talks with Pierre Gasly in a bid to prevent the Frenchman achieving an unwanted Formula 1 first.

Under the current rules, any driver who picks up a dozen penalty points within a 12-month period must serve a one-race ban. It is a punishment that has never been triggered in F1.

But Gasly has come close to it in recent months. Alpine signed him from AlphaTauri last year knowing that he was sat on 10 points, the first of which weren't due to expire until several weeks into this season.

The 27-year-old kept his nose clean in the early rounds and now two of those points have expired. Two more are set to go on July 10, meaning he will be down to six and further away from danger.

But he still made team principal Otmar Szafnauer nervous last time out in Barcelona. Gasly picked up two separate three-place grid penalties in qualifying for impeding opponents.

Sebastian Vettel warns of looming F1 ban and is "very worried about the future"

And although neither of those punishments came with penalty points on his licence, Szafnauer decided to step in. He explained as much as a he spoke to reporters ahead of this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix.

He said: "So we met in between Spain and here with Pierre and his engineering team. We met for about an hour and a half to discuss communication strategy, how we communicate with him, the information that he needs, the timing of the information that he gets, what he does with that information – just so we can get a little bit better."

Sazfnauer said he had held talks with Gasly after his penalties in Barcelona (AP)

It had been a strong qualifying for Alpine in Barcelona. Gasly went fourth quickest, though dropped to 10th on the grid courtesy of those penalties, while team-mate Esteban Ocon started sixth on the grid, rising a place because of that penalty for his fellow Frenchman.

But neither of them could make any progress in the race, Ocon slipping back two places to finish eighth while Gasly remained 10th. While even just a small total of points is always welcome, Szafnauer felt it was an "unfortunate" result given how strong they had looked in qualifying.

He added: "Had [Gasly] actually started fourth and ran fourth instead of starting where he did and then being pushed wide and ended up 14th after lap one... It's significantly different running 14th than running fourth.

"So we have to make sure that when we qualify that high, we can actually race there. And we will do some things differently and especially on Pierre's side. Esteban is more used to his engineering team, because he's been with us for a lot longer."

Daniel Moxon