Gasly appeal for "one more lap" brings shock result

Pierre Gasly has revealed his appeal for "one more lap" of the Austrian Grand Prix in a bid to overcome early brake problems led to him scoring a shock Formula 1 points haul.

Aside from Gasly's ninth position in final practice, neither AlphaTauri car had shown top-10 potential across the season-opening weekend at the Red Bull Ring.

However, with nine retirements overall in the race - including both Red Bulls - afforded Gasly the opportunity to bank six championship points for seventh position, a result the Frenchman says he would have taken without hesitation heading into the weekend.

"It's amazing to get back to racing and have this kind of race," said Gasly. "I think if someone would have told us we will have been P7 on Sunday we would have signed straight away at the beginning of the weekend.

"We knew it would be quite challenging against the Renault, McLaren and Racing Point, but in the end, we stayed out of trouble until the end, had some good fighting and then managed to get a couple of points."

Gasly then revealed it had not all been plain sailing across the 71-lap race, adding he had suffered a brake problem in the early stages that almost led to him adding to the list of retirees.

"For us, we were that close to retiring the car," added Gasly. "The team asked me to box on lap 10 because the brake pedal went pretty flat and the temperatures were going over the roof.

"I just asked for one lap, and they told me 'Okay, try'. I stayed out, things got better and in the end, we were P7, so we were on a lap to box the car and the next we stayed out."

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