Pierre Gasly dramatic fire cause revealed

Gasly, Singapore, AlphaTauri, 2022 — Photo: © LAT Images

Singapore Grand Prix

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Gasly dramatic fire cause revealed

Gasly's AlphaTauri caught fire in the pits

Ewan Gale

Friday 30 September 2022 19:00

Pierre Gasly has revealed the cause of his dramatic pit lane fire during second practice for the Singapore Grand Prix.

The AlphaTauri driver had returned to his pit box and was hoisted on the dolly wheels that allow his mechanics to push the car back into the garage when flames began flickering from the airbox.

A quick-thinking Aston Martin mechanic was on hand to help AlphaTauri's pit crew extinguish the fire as Gasly rapidly escaped from the cockpit.

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Remarkably, the power unit in the AT03 was unscathed as Gasly was able to return to the track within 10 minutes of the incident.

"It obviously wasn’t ideal to have the small fire when we connected the fuel breather, as we lost some running," he explained.

"But it was easily put out, ultimately it just burnt some paint, and we could get back out on track fairly soon after."

AlphaTauri "not happy" with practice performance

Gasly was unable to break into the top 10 during practice and eventually finished only 14th quickest.

The Frenchman has finished in the points only three times in the previous 10 races, such have been the Faenza-based team's struggles.

Conceding there is work to do ahead of the rest of the weekend, he said: “I’m loving this track, it’s a really special place and very technical.

"Overall, on the performance side, we’re not that happy right now. We were quite far back in FP2, and we didn’t have the pace to make it into the top 10, so we need to find something more for tomorrow.

"We brought some small upgrades here this weekend, which we’ll need to now go away and analyse some more, so we can get the most out of them moving forward.”