Pierre Gasly says Las Vegas retirement after stunning P3 in qualifying ‘a tough one to take’

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly lamented a disastrous Saturday evening at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, with the Frenchman retiring from the race after qualifying a stunning third 24 hours previously.

While Gasly had hopes of recording a fourth straight Q3 appearance for Alpine in Las Vegas, he surpassed his and the team’s expectations by making it all the way to P3 on Friday night – three weeks after the team celebrated an incredible double podium in Sao Paulo.

Gasly did lose out at the start but was still in the mix for points when he reported a loss of power over team radio – reacting angrily to being told by his race engineer that he had simply “hit the [rev] limiter” before a tell-tale puff of smoke spelled the end of his evening.

“It’s a very tough one to take because we had such a high yesterday,” said Gasly, “and obviously today it was the [worst] outcome possible. I think we did well, we knew the cars around us at the start were faster, so Max [Verstappen] and the McLarens, Norris and Hamilton got past us.

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“But then I think we were on for a good fight with Yuki [Tsunoda] for best of the rest, to fight for some important points for the championship. It’s just very disappointing from one day to another to have this happen.”

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Asked if there were positives he could take from his strong pace at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, Gasly replied: “I’m pretty pleased with the performance. Right now it’s more frustrating, but obviously it’s been very, very positive yesterday.

“Today as I mentioned, we were in the fight with Haas and [RB] and hopefully we can carry that on into Qatar.

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“Now we just need to get out of this place, and we’re already focused on next week. But obviously we had quite high hopes for the race, and it’s just pretty hard to swallow right now.”

Esteban Ocon compounded Alpine’s misery, meanwhile, finishing 17th out of 18 runners, the Frenchman having had to pit one more time than necessary after he was called in to change tyres before his crew were ready.

It meant that Alpine came away point-less from Las Vegas, seeing them drop from P6 to P7 in the constructors’ standings – Haas now in sixth on 50 points, one ahead of Alpine, with RB on 46 points in P8.