Gasly explains cause of Hamilton near-miss

Pierre Gasly has explained the circumstances that resulted in the "bad situation" that almost caused a 300kh crash with Lewis Hamilton in Japanese Grand Prix practice. Hamilton had to take to the escape road in FP1 after encountering a slow-moving Gasly at the Suzuka chicane.

Toro Rosso driver Gasly was reprimanded for the incident, but explained that another slow-moving car further up the road left him unable to get out of the world champion's path in time.

"I was really slow because I was preparing my lap and then my engineer told me Lewis was five or six seconds behind me before the quick left-hander," Gasly said.

"When I passed it I had a car in front of me really slow, so I slow down as I thought I had time with the five second gap.

"But the thing was I was at 60kph and by the time I got the message that I was five or six seconds and I think Lewis was already down to 3 seconds or 2.5 because he was at 300kph and I was at 60kph.

That was a close one ????#JapaneseGP ???????? #F1 pic.twitter.com/nmkONVTNjk — Formula 1 (@F1) October 5, 2018

"By the time I saw him in the mirror coming of course I knew I was screwed already because I was on the left side and to turn [off the racing line] at that point he would be really surprised and there might be something even bigger.

"I tried to close on the left, I even put one tyre on the grass and I think that was the safest thing to do at that point but I blocked him. It was just a bit of a bad situation."

Gasly's reprimand was his second of the season and the Frenchman will earn a 10-place grid drop if he receives another – something he believes would be unwarranted.

"I was in a bad place but it happens all the time," he added. "I had it with Fernando in FP1 and a couple of other drivers that don't get reprimanded so just if you are camera at that time and you get caught and then that's the kind of penalty you get.

"If I get a 10-place grid penalty for something like this I think it's a bit harsh. Honestly it was not a big deal in the end I understand that I blocked him but it was not my intention of course."

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