Pierre Gasly penalised by FIA for overspeeding during tractor incident at Japanese GP

Pierre Gasly has been penalised by the FIA for driving too fast in red flag conditions at the Japanese GP in Suzuka on Sunday.

The AlphaTauri driver was one of the last to reach the location of Carlos Sainz's accident and was shocked to see a tractor on the side of the track. Gasly lashed out on his team radio about the same but was inadvertently guilty of driving too fast under the red flag.

Pierre Gasly went to see the stewards for that incident and was handed a 20-second time penalty and two penalty points on his license.

According to the steward's report, Gasly said that he could have been more aware of the conditions. The driver was reportedly driving at over 200 km/h on multiple occasions. The report read:

"After passing the scene of the incident, car 10 continued under the red flag situation, at speeds which exceeded 200 km/h on multiple occasions, and which reached 251 km/h at one point. The driver conceded that he now understood that there could have been marshals or obstacles on the track, and admitted that he was too fast."

Stewards acknowledged Pierre Gasly's shock on seeing a truck at the corner of the incident. The report said:

“In mitigation of penalty, we take into account that although the speed could not by any measure be regarded as ‘slow’ as required in the regulations, it was slower that the maximum speed that could be achieved under these conditions. We also take into account the shock the driver experienced on seeing a truck on the racing line in the corner of the incident.”

Gasly's initial reaction on seeing a tractor on the track was one of shock as he shouted on the team radio:

"God – what the? – what is this tractor? What is this tractor on track? This is unacceptable! What has happened? I can’t believe this…”

Gasly would eventually finish the rain-shortened race in 18th place.

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Drivers react to Pierre Gasly incident

Other drivers chipped in during the race stoppage and were angry at the presence of a truck on the race track. Lando Norris was one of the first to tweet. He wrote:

"Wtf. How’s this happened!? We lost a life in this situation years ago. We risk our lives, especially in conditions like this. We wanna race. But this… Unacceptable."

Sergio Perez too voiced his concern over the presence of a truck on the race track. He tweeted:

"How can we make it clear that we never want to see a crane on track? We lost Jules because of that mistake. What happened today is totally unacceptable!!!!! I hope this is the last time ever I see a crane on track!"

The incident was one of many things that kept the Japanese GP in the news for all the wrong reasons.

Meanwhile, a delayed penalty for Pierre Gasly, a race start that should have been on wet tyres and a restart from red flag that could have been initiated earlier summed up a less than memorable weekend, where Max Verstappen clinched his second straight championship.