Racing
© Jonathan Borba
Pierre Gasly accused Racing Bulls of ruining Alpine’s Dutch Grand Prix after being delayed for 17 laps by penalized Arvid Lindblad and another 10 by Yuki Tsunoda, leaving him 10th and roughly one second behind ninth-placed Fernando Alonso.
Gasly had climbed from 11th to eighth before his first pit stop put him behind Lindblad, who had been given a drive-through penalty for a yellow-flag infringement and was no longer in contention for points. On Zandvoort’s difficult-to-pass layout, Gasly could not quickly clear the Racing Bulls rookie. A failed outside move at Turn 11 ended in a lock-up and allowed Nico Hülkenberg through, while Tsunoda later passed the Alpine before Lindblad let his team-mate by.
After his second stop, Gasly again emerged behind Tsunoda and needed 10 laps to get past. He lost four seconds to Alonso while stuck behind Lindblad despite running newer tires, a delay that left Alpine with one point rather than a potential ninth-place finish.
"VCARB ruined our race in the middle part of the race, played a team game for the championship and did it well," Gasly, the Alpine driver, said after the race. "It just made me lose a position to Nico and Tsunoda and I don't know how many seconds of race time. Congrats to them, and I can't wait to race them."
Lindblad, the Racing Bulls driver, told Motorsport.com that he had deliberately acted for his team after his own race had fallen away. "In the end, yeah, I played the team game. If he has a good memory, then fine," he said. "We all fight as hard as we can every weekend. I tried to help the team where I could. The reality was, my race, I wasn't really in it anymore, so I did what I could to help the team."
The exchange carries added weight in the fight for fifth in the constructors’ championship, where Racing Bulls holds 66 points to Alpine’s 63. Gasly’s frustration is likely to follow the teams to the coming rounds, where easier overtaking could make their on-track rivalry more direct.