Alpine tightens up F1 radio procedures after Gasly's Barcelona penalties

Pierre Gasly and his Alpine Formula 1 team engineers have tightened up their communications procedures after the Frenchman was penalised for impeding in qualifying for the Spanish GP.

Pierre Gasly, Alpine F1 Team

Gasly received three places apiece for holding up Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen in separate incidents in Barcelona.

He matched team-mate Esteban Ocon's Monaco performance in qualifying fourth, but his six-place cumulative penalty dropped him down to 10th.

He then lost more places with a scrappy first lap before eventually recovering to score a point in 10th place.

Gasly visited the team's Enstone factory on Tuesday and a meeting with his engineers put a focus on how to provide more accurate warnings about fast-approaching cars in practice and qualifying sessions.

"So we met in between Spain and here with Pierre and his engineering team," said team principal Otmar Szafnauer.

"We met for about an hour and a half to discuss communication strategy, how we communicate with him, the information that he needs, the timing of the information that he gets, what he does with that information - just so we can get a little bit better."

Szafnauer conceded that the Barcelona penalty was extremely costly.

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal, Alpine F1 Team, in the Team Principals Press Conference

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal, Alpine F1 Team, in the Team Principals Press Conference

Photo by: FIA Pool

"It was unfortunate," he said. "Had he actually started fourth and ran fourth instead of starting where he did and then being pushed wide and ended up 14th after lap one, it's significantly different running 14th than running fourth.

"So we have to make sure that when we qualify that high, we can actually race there. And we will do some things differently and especially on Pierre's side. Esteban is more used to his engineering team, because he's been with us for a lot longer."

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Szafnauer also clarified why Gasly stopped on his out-lap in FP1 in Canada, bringing out a red flag.

It was not related to a driveshaft issue as the driver had initially suggested on the radio.

"As we always do, we run the spare steering wheels on both cars," said Szafnauer. "And the reason we run them is to make sure that they're functioning because the rest of the weekend, we don't run them unless they're needed as a spare.

"And lo and behold, we had an electronics issue within the steering wheel on Pierre's car.

"Once we got it back and put the non-spare wheel on it, it was all OK. So we've got to understand what bit of electronics failed within the steering wheel."

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