Pierre Gasly will start Sunday’s Singapore Grand Prix from the pit lane after Alpine made setup changes to his A525, breaking parc ferme conditions.
Gasly qualified the slowest of all under the lights at the Marina Bay circuit as his final attempt to break out of Q1 ended with his car pointing at the Turn 9 barrier.
Pierre Gasly will line up in the pit lane
Out on track for a final flying lap, the Frenchman brought out the yellow flags when his A525 broke down with the driver reporting “losing everything” with heavy steering.
The French driver finished in 20th as a consequence.
“Oil protection cut,” Gasly told the media.
Asked if it was a sensor issue, he replied: “I’m not even going to go into details, I just had to stop the car.
“Not good. Not good.
“I couldn’t even turn. I was putting all my strength just to get around that Turn Nine, and then I had no throttle.”
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Gasly was elevated to 18th on the grid after the FIA stewards disqualified Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz, who had finished 12th and 13th, when their FW47’s rear wing slot gap failed post-session checks.
The rear wing slot gap was found to exceed the maximum 85mm when DRS was activated with Albon and Sainz excluded from the final qualifying classification.
However, the Alpine driver is heading to the pit lane as the team changed his car’s setup, thus breaking Parc Ferme conditions.
“Pierre will start today’s Singapore Grand Prix from the Pit Lane after the team made setup changes to his car under Parc Ferme conditions,” read the brief statement from Alpine.
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