“He was dying in the car, he was screaming in pain”: a Formula 1 driver told about the health problems he had at the Saudi Arabian GP

The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix completed the second Formula 1 weekend so far in 2022. Far from maintaining normality, the realization of it was involved between several organizational problems and little to little did the drivers themselves tell their perspective of what was the race in which Max Verstappen finished in first place. One of them was Pierre Gasly, who recounted his experience and said that he struggled with pain in the last 15 laps of the race in Jeddah: he managed to keep going and finished in eighth place.

The Frenchman started strong in the early part of the race and settled behind the group consisting of Esteban Ocon, Fernando Alonso, Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen. Unfortunately, he was unable to keep up and lost places when he entered the pits just before the safety car due to the Latifi accident. Struggling to finish eighth, the result was a great relief for AlphaTauri after Gasly's withdrawal from Bahrain and a terrible weekend for Yuki Tsunoda.

The Japanese driver was unable to participate in the qualifying or the race, stopping at the track due to an oil pressure problem. There were also a number of inconveniences for Pierre, among which were a problem with the clutch and damage to the floor, which was combined with severe pain in the intestine.

Gasly managed the final stage of the race with a constant puncture that increased with each effort. “When I was braking and at every left corner I had the feeling that someone was stabbing me into the gut, so it wasn't pleasant. It was mostly on the right side, so I need to see the doctor. The last five lapses were just about surviving, and I was in enormous pain. So I was counting the laps until the end, and that's why I'm happy that we managed to finish the race in eighth place.”

The 26-year-old admitted that he was worried about the series of problems suffered by the team in the first races, but he is confident that there will be improvements. “I must say that it has been very difficult from a reliability standpoint the first two weekends,” Gasly said. And he concluded with a future reflection: “The tests went very well, we were very confident. We lost some points in Bahrain, on my side. And then Yuki didn't qualify, and he didn't even take the exit. So, as a team, it's obviously quite painful to see that. But I have confidence within the team to find the solutions. We have been very reliable last year and the last few years, but it has clearly been quite difficult for us to start the season.”

“I'm very happy, but it was a very unfortunate moment with the pit stop,” he told the specialist site when asked if he was happy with his performance. And he added: “Literally when I got out of the pit I saw the safety car leave. So I dropped to 14th place after that and managed to return to eighth. I think we can be happy. These have been the last 15 most painful lapses of my entire career. I don't know what happened to my gut, but I was dying inside the car, I was screaming in pain and I'm happy that the race is over.”

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