F1 star swears in furious rant at rival after 180mph near-miss at Canadian GP

17 June 2023 , 20:37

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Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz very nearly crashed in qualifying (Image: Sky Sports)

Pierre Gasly was apoplectic with Carlos Sainz after a very scary near-miss at the end of the first part of Canadian Grand Prix qualifying.

It happened at the end of Q1 in Montreal. In a desperate bid to reach the start-finish line to get in one more lap, there were three cars all going into the final chicane at the same time.

Gasly was the third of them, arriving at the end of that long straight at around 180mph. Sainz was there trundling into that chicane slowly, with Yuki Tsunoda also heading towards the start-finish line.

The Alpine driver had to swerve off the track to avoid slamming into the rear of Sainz's Ferrari. And he made it clear just how angry he was about the incident as he suggested the Spaniard should be banned for such dangerous driving.

"Should be banned for such a thing! I'm coming at 300kph! What the f*** do they think?!" he yelled. On-board cameras showed he was slapping his own helmet with his left hand out of anger over the incident.

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It proved to be costly for Gasly, even though he avoided the crash. Because the start of that final flying lap was compromised, he was only able to go 17th fastest and so was out of the session at the first hurdle.

Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer was slightly more composed, but was clearly also very upset about the situation. "It's ridiculous, in a word," he told Sky Sports. "Terrible. Pierre would have been P6, now he's out in Q1."

A shake of the fist from a furious Pierre Gasly (Sky Sports)

The race director seemed similarly unimpressed with Sainz's actions. The incident was referred to the stewards to be looked at after the end of the session, with a penalty seemingly looming for the Ferrari driver.

To make matters worse for the Italians, their other driver also had a session to forget. Ferrari got their tyre strategy wrong and left him out there on intermediate tyres while most others switched to slicks for the dry part of that session.

Red Bull also made the same error with Sergio Perez, and both of them failed to make it through to Q3. Lewis Hamilton was also still on the intermediate tyres, but just managed to scrape through nonetheless.

Daniel Moxon