Gasly questions why Leclerc wasn’t investigated for Styria F1 incident

Gasly was forced to retire following contact with Leclerc on the exit of Turn 1 on the opening lap at the Red Bull Ring.

The Ferrari driver appeared to veer right into Gasly, clipping the back of his AlphaTauri, giving him a puncture and suspension damage in the process.

The stewards decided not to investigate the incident after it was deemed by race director Michael Masi to be a typical Lap 1 incident.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, Gasly questioned why it wasn’t investigated given it ruined his race, using Valtteri Bottas’ penalty for his pit lane spin as an example of a driver affecting no one’s race, but still picking up a penalty.

“No at the end for me, the clear thing is, it would have not changed my race I think the damage was already done so in the end it doesn't really matter to me, but I must say I was a bit surprised at the time that there was no further investigation, obviously, you know, it wasn't done on purpose and it's not something which Charles deliberately did but for sure it had quite a big consequence on my race, and especially after seeing Valtteri getting three places penalties for losing the control of his car in the pit lane, but not really affecting anyone else's race,” Gasly said.

“And this, which obviously had an impact on my race, I must say I was surprised but as I said at the end of the day I just care about my own race, and there's not much changed anything on that side so, but just something we're probably going to talk with Michael [Masi].”

Reflecting on the incident, Leclerc admits he could have avoided iy but insists he has no concerns about his racecraft after recent comments from F1 boss Ross Brawn suggested that top drivers - like Leclerc - who fall back into the midfield lack ‘patience’ and thus lead to incidents.

“Well definitely it put us on the back foot. Looking back at the incident then yeah maybe there’s something I could have done to avoid it but now it’s too late,” Leclerc added. Then for my wheel-to-wheel racing I’m actually quite satisfied with it.

“It’s obviously always on the limit, but if you look at the last race it helped us massively to come back through the field without losing too much pace. It’s always a fine balance, it was a bit too much on the first lap but I spoke with Pierre and everything is fine there.”