Pierre Gasly says he and AlphaTauri should have been in podium contention in Hungary after the chaos that unfolded on the opening lap.
Gasly qualified a superb fifth at the Hungaroring but was caught up in the melee that was triggered by Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas into Turn 1.
Gasly dropped down the order to 11th but lost further positions in the pit lane when all of the field, bar Lewis Hamilton, took on dry tyres.
He eventually recovered to sixth place, which became fifth following Sebastian Vettel’s exclusion, pending Aston Martin’s intent to appeal.
“I don’t know what to say except that Valtteri f***ed up, took the first six cars pretty much out of the race,” he said.
“Luckily we didn’t get damage from it, compared to Max [Verstappen], Lando [Norris], Checo [Perez] too.
“You know, the target was to qualify high in the midfield, to be in the best possible position for the race, that’s what we did and, in the end, we can say we almost over-performed when we qualified ahead of the Ferrari and the McLaren.
“But, in the end, it would have been better to be in our natural position, slightly further back and benefit from this situation…
“You never know when these things will happen, but it’s just a shame.”
Gasly was pleased with AlphaTauri’s recovery from the rear but still irritated at the way the race panned out
“From the first corner we were dead last, and in such a track it is extremely difficult to recover, so we had a really good day to still finish P6, we managed to get the fastest lap, but we should have been looking at the podium,” he said.
“It’s a bit disappointing, because we think there would have been more to do if we had been slightly luckier at the start.”
