Gasly wasn't sure: "I thought Hamilton was going to win"

F1 News

9 September 2020 at 20:04
Last update 9 September 2020 at 21:12
  • GPblog.com

We cannot stop talking about it, Pierre Gasly's sensational win at Monza. The Frenchman himself didn't actually believe he could win during the race. He expected Lewis Hamilton to catch up with him in his Mercedes.

Hamilton had to go in for his stop-and-go-penalty after the restart and fell to the back of the grid. Gasly, who started third during the restart, thought Hamilton would just come back afterwards. "I wasn't aiming at Lewis at all," says the AlphaTauri rider at Motorsport-Total. "I thought he would go to the pits, come back through the field and finish 20 seconds ahead of us". Things were different, though.

After serving his sentence, Hamilton was 30 seconds behind Gasly, with 25 laps to go. "I expected him - and Bottas too - to make his way back through the field and just fly past us. But that was not the case. The team clearly knew it wouldn't be so easy for them. And that's what happened," said Gasly. In the end, Gasly finished 17 seconds ahead of Hamilton.