Gasly escapes race ban for incident with teammate Ocon

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The Alpine teammates made contact with each other at the final restart, a disastrous moment which cost them both points.

They were called to face the stewards and the stakes were particularly high for Gasly, who already has 10 penalty points to his name. A further two points added, if he was guilty for the incident in Melbourne, would have resulted in a ban for the next race at the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

But stewards have now confirmed it was a “racing incident” and added: “Both cars recognised and accepted this as such. In the circumstances, we took no further action.”

Ocon said after the race: "I have a headache, it was a hard hit, but I'm tough! We had good pace, similar to the Astons and Ferrari.

"We were doing a good race but the red flag killed our strategy.

"It could have been anyone that I collided with, because there were a lot of cars. It ended up being Pierre who left me no space.

"No hard feelings. He came to apologise."

Gasly said: "I am extremely disappointed with the outcome. I was racing with the Ferrari and Fernando Alonso. I was running P5 on pace. I can't believe what happened.

"I don't want to comment on the end."

This clash between the French duo will become the first test of a relationship which was rumoured to be tense before the season started.

Gasly is a new recruit at Alpine, but his history with his compatriot Ocon goes back to their childhood when they dreamed of becoming F1 drivers. They have reportedly endured a rollercoaster relationship in the years since.

The Alpine drivers have played down those claims before the season started, but it will now come under the microscope even more.