'I saw some space... it didn't work out' – Gasly says no one to blame for first-lap crash

Pierre Gasly will never forget last weekend’s race in Monza. He’ll never want to remember this weekend’s Grand Prix in Mugello…

After a disappointing qualifying in which he was surprisingly knocked out in Q1, the Frenchman didn’t even make it around Turn 2 in the race. Squeezed between Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo and Haas’s Romain Grosjean approaching Turn 2, contact seemed inevitable, and both Gasly and Grosjean spun into the gravel.

READ MORE: Massive drama in Mugello as early restart results in chaotic four-car crash

Grosjean was able to get himself going again, but Gasly was out – eliminated with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who was also caught up in the drama.

“Coming into Turn 1 there were a lot of cars, side-by-side, then I saw some space between Antonio and Romain and I went in there - three [cars] side-by-side,” said Gasly. “It didn’t work out, and we contacted all together.

“I don’t think there is any blame, it’s probably the nature of the track but I don’t know, I didn’t see the footage, I need to have a look back.”

For the AlphaTauri driver it marked the end of a frustrating weekend in which he’d shown flashes of the brilliant speed that took him to victory in Monza but couldn’t convert it into another strong result.

“I think we lost an opportunity because all weekend we had really strong pace in practice,” said Gasly. “Yesterday in qualifying we found that we damaged the front wing and the bargeboard so I was confident today we could recover with the pace we showed in practice.

“I think this year we managed most of the Sundays to really maximise most of our opportunities and didn’t really have any crashes like this. And then yeah, it’s just a shame about today I think we need to take the positives and the performance so far has been really good and this weekend and FP3 was really good.

“We need to carry this to Sochi but I would have liked to be out there with the guys and try to recover into the points.”