In the round-up: Pierre Gasly says AlphaTauri are still struggling to compete for points despite their recent update.
In letter
AlphaTauri struggling in midfield – Gasly
Gasly started from the pit lane in Hungary due to a power unit change. He recovered to finish 12th, but admitted the team is still lacking performance.
“The last few weekends obviously have been quite difficult and starting from the pit lane now we decided to revert on a couple of the things we did, try to get back to what we did earlier this season. I think there were actually a lot of interesting things.
“In terms of performance I think we showed a slightly better pace than we used to do on Friday and we showed in the last couple of weekends. So definitely some interesting data.
“From the pit lane I’m pretty pleased to make it back to P12. At the moment McLaren and Alpine are just too fast for us and Aston on race day seem to pick up quite a bit of pace as well. Still I would say a positive Sunday even though we are quite far from the position we’d like.”
Teams stay in Hungary to test
More laps of the Hungaroring for Aston MartinMercedes and Aston Martin weren’t in a hurry to depart the Hungaroring. The two teams will test prototype slick tires for Pirelli on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Bird scores points with broken hand
Sam Bird broke his hand on the first lap of the London Eprix, yet finished the race and scored points.
The Jaguar driver did not attend media duties after the race. His team confirmed that, on medical advice, he had gone for precautionary hospital checks on a hand injury. He was involved in several bumping incidents during the first lap.
Formula E drivers unimpressed with multiple first-lap retirements
Jean-Eric Vergne, Oliver Rowland, Dan Ticktum and Nick Cassidy retired on the first lap of the second London EPrix. Oliver Askew also retired later after being involved in the incidents.
Cassidy was seen slowing behind the safety car after Rowland and Ticktum’s retirements called it out. He blamed his early exit from the race on Maximilian Günther.
“The first seven corners, I was hit seven times by Günther,” said Cassidy. “Fair play for persistence, he obviously keeps at it, doesn’t give up. Fair play.”
Rowland’s retirement came after going semi-airborne, his car lifting between Askew’s and the wall on the ramp section. However, he said that the worse damage was when he landed and then subsequently hit Vergne, who was crawling back to the pits with a radiator problem.
“When you’re sitting in the seat you just see the sky and think ‘hmm, where’s this going’ but no, I was fine, it wasn’t too big an impact to be honest,” said Rowland. “I came out of turn five and he already squeezed me a bit into the wall and as he was [alongside me] he kind of picked up the front, so I was going towards the wall and then the wall picked me up in the air.
“So it wasn’t 10-out-of-10 bad on his side, it was all just a bit unfortunate, just tops off the weekend really,” Rowland concluded.
Nissany could become third F2 driver to get ban
Nissany, who has driven in F1 practice for Williams, is near a banFormula 2 is close to banning a third driver for reaching 12 penalty points in a season. Yesterday Oliver Caldwell became the second driver to reach a ban and will sit out the next round at Spa-Francorchamps. Amaury Cordeel was previously banned from the Silverstone round.
Now Williams junior driver Roy Nissany has reached 11 penalty points, meaning he will earn an automatic ban if he collects one more. He received two after yesterday’s feature race at the Hungaroring when the stewards judged him entirely responsible for a collision with Roberto Merhi.
“The stewards determined that car 16 [Nissany] made an inside pass attempt at the entrance of turn one,” they explained. “The brakes locked briefly and car 16 [Merhi] made contact with car 15 hard enough that the right rear suspension was damaged. Car 15 is judged wholly responsible for the collision.”
