Pierre Gasly isn't focused on recent incident with Alpine teammate Franco Colapinto. Photo: RacePictures.

Gasly reacts to team order incident with Colapinto

15:33, 21 Oct

byNorberto Mujica

Pierre Gasly focuses on performance over Franco Colapinto's disregard of team orders as Alpine struggled in the United States.

In the last stages of the race in Austin Alpine had instructed both drivers to hold position, before Colapinto pounced on the Frenchman, but Gasly emphasised that extracting performance from the car is the priority.

Gasly started the race in P13 and fought through a difficult opening stint to finish P15, while Colapinto began from P17 and climbed to P14.

Alpine's race was hampered by a series of pit-stop issues and traffic on the soft tyres, which affected both drivers’ rhythm and prevented them from challenging the midfield rivals effectively.

Pierre Gasly drives the A525 during the US. Grand Prix weekend. Photo: RacePictures.

Gasly told GPblog after the race: “We'll see inside the team. First stint was good, boxed, not too sure why. We'll see with the team.

"Another poor pit stop, coming out right in the gearbox of Esteban instead of being ahead and trying to fight, overheat the tyres. Very poor second stint with the soft in traffic.

"Ultimately we're just too slow. The rest of it [Colapinto's disregard of the team orders], honestly, it’s stuff that we’ll review inside the team. We’re just too slow."

Pierre Gasly in the Alpine garage during the Singapore Grand Prix - Photo: Race Pictures

On Colapinto ignoring the instructions to hold position, Gasly remained diplomatic. “Honestly, I should not even be right there. I care more about the performance side than this type of thing.

"But I’m sure we’ll review it inside the team. It’s stuff that we need to take inside the office and there’s no point to release the frustration in here. But I’m not happy about this race, and overall I’m just disappointed with our performance this afternoon. We’ll have to do better.”

Alpine Managing Director's clear response

Steve Nielsen, Alpine's Managing Director, whom Gasly rated highly, also spoke about the incident involving both drivers. You can read his reaction here.

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