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Pierre Gasly has been hit with a six-place grid penalty after being found guilty of two impeding infringements during qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Gasly underlined the improved performance of the Alpine following the results achieved during last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix by qualifying fourth at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.
But despite his best qualifying display of the season since his winter switch from AlphaTauri, he has paid the price for impeding the top two on the grid for the race in Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz in his Ferrari.
Both incidents occurred during Q1, with Gasly moving across onto the line of first Sainz out of Turn 13 and into the approach to the final corner, and then Verstappen later in the session.
For each incident, Gasly has received a drop of three grid places, and so falls to 10th for the race start.
For impeding Sainz, the stewards’ report read: “The driver of car 10 (Gasly) stated he was aware that the second Ferrari (car 55, Sainz) was behind but felt he could do nothing to avoid impeding because of the high-speed delta and closeness of car 55 to car 16 (Charles Leclerc).
“However, it is the view of the stewards that he could have moved further to the right at the exit of turn 13.”
As for Verstappen, a second report blamed Alpine. It read: “The team failed to give appropriate warning to the driver of car 10, of the approach of car 1, having told him that cars behind were on a slow lap.”
Speaking prior to the stewards’ verdicts and knowing he was likely facing a penalty, Gasly was nevertheless delighted with the performance of his car.
He said: “It’s important to enjoy. I’m very happy for the team because it’s the best qualifying of the season.
“Mostly, more than the result itself, I’m just happy with the evolution we’ve been showing throughout the last few weekends.
“It’s still early in the season and I’m still learning about the team every weekend, learning about myself. It’s about putting things together, and I really feel like every weekend we’re making a step forward.
“It was a very strong lap (his final run in Q3). I’m always looking further ahead and when I see Carlos in second, less than a tenth (of a second) away, it really shows we have potential in the package we have, the upgrades are working.
“So overall, a lot of positives to take from this.”
As to the incidents themselves, he added: “All I can say is I’ve tried my best with the information that was given at the time.
“Whatever happened wasn’t intentional, obviously. We just need to review exactly what’s happened.”
