Daniel Ricciardo & Co Reveal Intense WhatsApp Group Conversations Immediately After Pierre Gasly Incident

As the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix concluded, Max Verstappen’s title win somehow overshadowed the earlier on-track incident involving Pierre Gasly and the rescue truck. As the world had almost turned away from the incident, a piece of new information regarding the dangerous truck surfaced on the internet where drivers took an active part.

As the race was red-flagged and drivers returned to the pit safely, McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo revealed that they were talking about the incident on WhatsApp.

“Yes, I saw a lot of messages they sent,” explained Daniel Ricciardo. [Translated using Google]

Moreover, one of the top officials in the GPDA [the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association] George Russell also opened up on the incident.

Russell conveyed, “I think we talked about it a little bit in the drivers briefing this week, because there was an extraction vehicle on the track in Singapore with the Tsunoda accident during a safety car, and it was at the time that people were doing the change to the dry tires.”

“We’ve already expressed our opinion that we don’t want that to ever happen. That was last week, and coming here a week later, with the circumstances and the history [in reference to Bianchi’s accident], it’s quite disappointing,” concluded the Mercedes driver.

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Pierre Gasly feared for his life, whereas FIA penalized him for speeding

As the Japanese Grand Prix race started, Carlos Sainz slid off and hit the barrier near the end of Lap 2. This brought in a red flag. Gasly who started the race from the pit lane tried to cover the distance as the cars piled up behind the safety car.

While trying to cover up the distance, Gasly reached an on-track speed of about 250 kilometers per hour and that was when he spotted the rescue crane. The Frenchman screamed “I could have f**king killed myself” amid the risky situation.

Everyone from Jules Bianchi’s father to driver Lando Norris slammed the FIA over a such risky decision to put the rescue crane on the track while the cars were still on track.

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FIA took note of the situation and later slammed the future Alpine recruit with a 20-second time penalty. Not only that, but they gave him 2 penalty points on his superlicence. FIA stated that the AlphaTauri driver was speeding under such dangerous conditions. Gasly who started the race in P20 and eventually finished in P18.