Pierre Gasly has revealed he urged Charles Leclerc to take the win at the Belgian Grand Prix following the death of Anthoine Hubert.
France is enjoying a renaissance of young talent making their way into Formula 1 and Formula 2, but Hubert became the second up and coming star to be killed after a horrible crash in the feature race at Spa on Saturday.
His passing impacted Gasly harder than most, as he revealed their friendship had gone beyond just growing up racing together,
“I think it was for sure the most emotional pre-race I ever had because you are not ready at 22, 23 years old, to live this kind of moments, to lose one your best mates,” he said.
“We’ve been classmates, I’ve studied since I was 13 until 19 with him, with the same professor at a private school that the federation did. I’m still shocked.
“I just don’t realise how it can go so fast. It’s just terrible. I’ve already planned to see all our friends we had in common with Anthoine tomorrow because none of us really understand and realise what has happened yesterday and it’s just super sad.
“I told Charles before the race ‘please win this race for Anthoine’ because we started racing in the same year, Charles, Anthoine and myself,” Gasly added.
“And actually Anthoine won the French Cup in 2005. We just raced for so many years and knew each other. Between Jules [Bianchi] a couple of years ago, and now Anthoine, I think it’s really terrible news for French motorsport. they were two really great, amazing characters and it’s really difficult to realise.”
For Leclerc, Hubert was the third big loss in his life over the past four years following Bianchi in 2015 and his father Herve in 2017, and it was his experience with the latter that helped him at Spa.
“Obviously there were quite a bit of emotion before the race and then once I got in the car, as I did for my father two years ago, you need to put all the emotions to one side and focus on the job, which is exactly what I did,” he explained via Crash.net.
“Then you realise at the end of the race and all the emotions come back once you cross the finish line. I was very happy to win and remember him the way he deserved to be and, yeah, happy to do it on this day.
“So it’s obviously quite challenging to then close the visor and go through this exact same corner at the exact same speed you do the day before – but that’s what you need to do at the end.”
Having got the job done though, Leclerc admits the scale of everything that took place at Spa will need some time to digest.
“It’s very difficult to enjoy this first win with the situation we have had yesterday, but overall it is just a dream come true,” he said post-race
“Since I was a child I’ve been looking up to Formula 1, dreaming to be first a Formula 1 driver, which happened last year, and then driving for Ferrari this year and then the first win.
“It’s a good day but on the other hand, as I said, losing Anthoine yesterday brings me back to 2005, my first ever French championship.
“There was him, Esteban, Pierre, myself and we were four kids that were dreaming of Formula 1.
“We’ve grown up together in karting for many, many years and to lose him yesterday was a big shock for me but obviously for everyone in motorsport.
“It was a very sad day and, as I said, very difficult to enjoy it fully today, but hopefully in two or three weeks I will realise what happened today.”