The Frenchman lost control at turn 13 and hit the wall, severely damaging the rear of his Alpine. The team had tested different parts in practice.
Pierre Gasly suffered a heavy crash in the second free practice session of the Belgian Grand Prix, the Alpine driver lost control of his A526 at the exit of turn 13 and hit the wall, severely damaging the rear of the car. The red flag stopped the session with 15 minutes remaining, but Gasly walked away unharmed.
"Overall, it's been a good day of testing, many different parts tested on both cars, so now we just have to weigh what is good, what is best from all these adjustments and try to put it all together for tomorrow. We just need to work to understand what happened in FP2. I had a big slide, I lost the car... it took me a long time to recover it and when I did I was already off track and couldn't get it back" declared Gasly after the accident.
The Frenchman explained that he lost control of the car at the exit of the corner and could not avoid the impact with the wall: "It wasn't the end of the day we wanted, but I'm sure the guys will fix it tomorrow and then we'll focus on trying to get into the top 10" added Gasly.
Steve Nielsen, Alpine's sporting director, confirmed that the team had planned to make changes to Gasly's car before Saturday: "Pierre is fine, the car is not. We were going to change the power unit on that car tonight anyway, so although it's a fairly long work list for the mechanics, half of it we were already doing, no problem to be ready for tomorrow" explained Nielsen.
Alpine's sporting director also referred to the work done during practice: "This morning it was never about lap time for us, it was always about gathering data and this afternoon we looked a bit more at lap time, Pierre set a fairly competitive time but it was deleted for track limits at turn 4 which is a shame. But the car seems to have a bit of pace here, more than in recent races. We just have to make sure we keep that for tomorrow" he stated.
Gasly had set a competitive time in FP2 but it was deleted for exceeding track limits at turn 4. The Frenchman trusts that the team can repair the car in time for Saturday's qualifying and fight for a spot in Q3.
Alpine has shown good pace at Spa-Francorchamps and the team hopes that the upgrades introduced on the car will allow them to continue scoring points in the midfield.
Gasly and his teammate Franco Colapinto will seek a good result in Belgium to maintain fifth position in the constructors' championship.
