One of the few highlights of last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix came from Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda when they collided shortly after exiting the tunnel.
At that time, both had already completed the first of the two mandatory pit stops and were fighting for 17th place. Coming out of the tunnel, Pierre Gasly rear-ended the Red Bull driver, and according to his initial radio message to the team, it seemed he had lost his brakes. “No brakes,” the Frenchman had said.
However, at the end of the race, the former AlphaTauri driver gave a different version, stating that the team radio message had been misinterpreted. Pierre Gasly instead blamed his former teammate.
“I had brakes. Yuki made a mistake before the tunnel and I managed to get very close to him. Every lap he braked on the racing line, to the right. On that lap, when I was very close, I decided to stay on the left.”
“He started braking on the left to defend, and I moved to the right (to try to overtake), and he returned to the ideal racing line. I, having changed line earlier, had already decided to brake later. At that point, I had no chance to avoid contact.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you have to stick to your own line. There’s no space to let two cars through. You can defend your position, but you can’t say: ‘I go right, I close the door on the right, and then if you try to go left, I close the door on the left too.’”
“Monaco is already a pretty difficult track by itself. In that moment, I thought Yuki Tsunoda would leave me space. I’m sure we’ll talk about it, but I don’t think it was his most correct maneuver.”
When Gasly’s comments were relayed to Yuki Tsunoda, the Red Bull driver exclaimed: “What? I don’t think I did anything wrong.”
“I would have done the same if I had to defend again because I was always close to the wall. I knew he would try to overtake, and I didn’t want to move under braking.”
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