Pierre Gasly admitted to being careful whenever he has to go wheel to wheel with the fellow countryman Esteban Ocon and pointed out the fight they had at the Mexican Grand Prix as a reason for his caution.
The duel between the two Frenchman dates back to their karting days and there is no love lost between the two childhood rivals.
At the Mexican Grand Prix, they locked horns once again and fought for track position at Turn 4 during the final laps of the race. The Toro Rosso driver thinks Ocon unfairly pushed him off the track.
But the stewards believe that Gasly ran wide because of a lockup and did not take any action on the Force India driver. Although the Red bull junior overtook Ocon later in the race, he was still upset with his karting rival.
“With Ocon, it’s always the same thing. I’ve known him for a long time, there are a lot of chances that things happen,” Gasly said after the race.
“I think he wasn’t very happy that I had started last and managed to overtake him, so he pushed me wide and I had to go off track.
“I could have forced my way in Turn 5 and we would have had contact, but it wasn’t worth it, as I could have another go after that.”
“For me, it wasn’t fair, because you leave the space for one car, but if they say you can race aggressively, I don’t mind.”
Galsy also raked up the issue about a similar instance in the past where he was penalised for forcing Sergio Perez to go wide in Silverstone.
“I think compare it with many other situations, like with me in Silverstone, so it seems to be quite a grey area, as normally you should leave space for one car and clearly there wasn’t space for one car there,” he said.
“In the end, I don’t care, because I finished ahead of him [Ocon] and I scored one point, and he didn’t score points.”
