Gasly explains “not very pleasant” incident with Norris · RaceFans

Pierre Gasly said he suffered a problem with his car at the “worst possible time” when he inadvertently held Lando Norris up during practice today.

The McLaren driver was unhappy with his rival who spoiled his run through the final sequence of high-speed turns at the Baku City Circuit. Norris gestured at Gasly with his middle finger after being forced to abandon his qualifying simulation lap.

Afterwards Norris was under the impression Gasly had made a mistake. “It was probably not his fault,” he said. “It’s just that here, you don’t deploy the power until very late.

“He’s just clearly misjudged it. But it didn’t matter, I’d done my lap already – it’s just a straight until then.”

However Gasly revealed he experienced a problem with his power unit as Norris was catching him.

“I was planning to give a tow to Lando as he was coming behind,” the Alpine driver told the official F1 channel. “Then I got a battery issue in the Esses, probably at the worst possible time.

“So I basically had no more power and he caught up right behind me. I tried to pull out of the way, but it’s a blind [corner].

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“I understand it was not very pleasant for him and not for me as well because I could not do anything. The engine came back after that, but we had to box.”

It was a poor session for Alpine as Gasly ended the day’s running 18th-quickest ahead of his team mate and Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu

“It was the most difficult Friday of the year,” he admitted. “We just have no grip at the moment. So it’s very, very difficult.”

“We are on the back foot and we have a lot of work ahead of us tonight,” he added. “So we’ll try to bring anything because at the moment we are the slowest car out there.”