Gasly defends “tough race” after Norris criticism

During Sunday’s French Grand Prix, Norris branded Gasly on McLaren team radio as “an idiot” after the Frenchman violently overtook him and then slipped a long way himself.

“It was a tough race, but I really enjoyed it,” commented Gasly when asked about the Norris incident by Autosport. “You can’t expect him to be walking around and the guy not fighting.

“So I tried to keep it clean. It is really a difficult turn, very long, you are on the verge of a grip.

“You also have a tailwind, so it’s difficult to keep the car on track. I haven’t seen the footage, I’ll watch it to see if it was too much or not.

“I slipped onto the curb at the exit. I think I’m a pretty fair racer and we fought again on the next lap. It’s a race. “

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M

Photo by: Drew Gibson / Motorsport Images

Gasly ultimately lost to both Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, but continued his streak of strong points with a seventh place in 2021.

“I have to let the emotions calm down a bit because it was an intense race with a lot of things,” he explained.

“But you know, P7, in the end we are the fourth best car, behind the two McLaren, the two Mercedes and the two Red Bulls. I think we can only be satisfied with that.

“Of course there are a few things that I could do a little differently, like the pit stop that we let Charles do [Leclerc] and [Daniel] Ricciardo undercut us and it cost us our position.

“I had to fight straight out of the pits and damaged the tires early on in the stint.

“So we still have to check a few things, but overall P7, the fourth-placed car, we can’t complain about that. Lots of good fights so I think it was a strong race. “

Also read:

Gasly said he couldn’t understand why Ferrari did so badly in the race and Leclerc eventually dropped to a low 16th place.

“I was really surprised, crazy, I don’t really know what happened to Charles. But he definitely damaged the tire badly, “he said.

“The thing is, the degradation was so high. We didn’t really push at the start either. On some laps it was strong, on others you could see that I had a lot of grit, so it was quite difficult in terms of tire management. “

Gasly admitted that he also had some handling problems: “I had no stability, I had no rotation in the middle, my traction sucked.”

“It was very difficult, I think, probably for everyone, just very different from Friday. Very different from Saturday. And there is not much you can do.

“I tried to get the most out of the limitation I had, but I have to say it was very, very difficult.”