Gasly honest: "You feel like you’re in a cage”

With the 2020 racing season coming to an end, drivers can look forward to well-deserved time with family and friends. In light of last season's coronavirus measures and the likelihood of these measures remaining in place until 2021, visiting friends and family for drivers has given a new layer of meaning. What is a responsible amount of social contact for off-season drivers? Pierre Gasly thinks as follows.

To Autosport.com, the Alphatauri driver explains how he will organise his time with family and friends between the two seasons: "I'm clearly going to take the opportunity over the off-season to do it, because who knows what is going to happen next year. We may be in a similar situation. Clearly during the off-season and the small time we have, I'll try to have a better social life hopefully."

Gasly continues:  "I still want to be careful with the people around me, but still I'm going to take more freedom to see my family, to see them over Christmas, spend more time with them. It's the same with my friends. I came back after two months in France [last month], and they were there and I told them, 'I'm sorry, I wish I could see you, but I just don't want to take the risk,' because you never know.”

Frustrating

For the most part, this year the drivers have lived in a strictly enforced bubble, in order to stop coronavirus infections on the grid. This has caused some frustration during the season, Gasly also admits: "It's kind of frustrating not to be able to. You feel like you're a bit in a cage, where you don't have the freedom to really do and see the people you want.”