Pierre Gasly has urged changes to the timings for the Las Vegas GP next year after the first race in city for 40 years saw the drivers struggle for grip with low evening temperatures.
A number of drivers went off during the race and clearly struggled for grip, notably Lando Norris who suffered a bizarre spin early in proceedings which saw him crash out in spectacular fashion and be taken off to hospital for precautionary checks.
With track temperatures down in single digits, drivers were seen weaving on the straights to get some heat back into the tyres, with Charles Leclerc almost losing the car during a safety car period as he attempted to warm up the rubber.
Despite securing Alpine’s best grid spot of the year with fifth in qualifying, Gasly agonisingly just missed out on points in 11th, and the Frenchman said while he enjoyed the outing in Sin City, he would like to see changes ahead of the 2024 race.
“Well yeah it was quite sketchy with these temperatures, if we can see a bit of sunlight in the next few years that would not be a bad thing,” Gasly told media after the race..
“The restarts in the safety car were a bit tricky, but you need it first time and I’m sure we learn from this year.”
“I enjoyed it. It was fun until until I realized okay, it’s gonna be painful, but I tried my best and I gave everything out there and tried to salvage everything I could unfortunately it didn’t work out,” Gasly said.
“But I think it was it was a great event.
Oil issues
The left hand side of the starting grid in Las Vegas appeared compromised before lights out, after the car carrying Oscar Piastri during the drivers parade spilled oil on the track, prompting a swift clean up operation before proceedings got underway.
But with the lack of support races, there was no running on track to rubber in the circuit and get an opportunity to clear any lingering liquid from the surface, something Gasly said had probably compromised his start.
“It wasn’t nice, especially lining up on the best spot of the year for us, so yea, I think I we discussed it already with the FIA,” Gasly said.
“We’ll change a few things because it doesn’t feel really fair that some guys had to start on oil and some others had clean tarmac.”
