For Pierre Gasly, the sprint race in Spielberg was practically over after just a few meters. As at Silverstone, the Frenchman was involved in contact with a Mercedes just a few yards from the start – only this time it had turned him. His race to catch up ended up taking him to 15th place.
The Lewis Hamilton incident is one of the previous incidents in sprint races. There have been five sprints in the history of Formula 1, and Gasly has been involved in a collision three times on the first lap.
In Monza 2021 he had started from sixth place, but then demolished his front wing in the first corner and flew into the barriers in the following corner. At Imola that year he clashed with Guanyu Zhou and sent the Chinese into a spin that ended his session. And now the contact with Hamilton at the start.
“I don’t know what happened,” he says. “All I know is that I was going the wrong way round in the curve. I still have to take a good look at what happened. I was slightly ahead and suddenly I drove towards the guardrail on the left-hand side.”
Race start for Gasly from P14
Gasly had started the sprint from tenth on the grid and got away better than Hamilton before him. Gasly was slightly in front of the Mercedes driver when braking for the first corner, but still off the mark. The AlphaTauri driver pulled a little to the left before the first corner, where Hamilton was sandwiched between him and Alexander Albon (Williams).
Gasly’s left rear wheel and Hamilton’s right front wheel touched, which lifted Gasly and sent him into a spin. “I just tried to turn and it all happened so quickly.”
The Frenchman was able to follow the field, but his car was damaged after the accident: “The underbody and the entire left side of the car is really damaged and is hanging down,” he says. “Sprint races really don’t go in my favor.”
After Valtteri Bottas’ penalty, he will start Sunday’s race from 14th position. His goal: “I want to make the first corner and then we’ll see,” he says. “It’s going to be a long race. It was quite difficult today with the damage so we’ll have to see what we can do. But it clearly wasn’t a great day.”