Pierre Gasly criticised Lance Stroll for the Turn 1 incident which took his hopes of P6 in the Drivers’ standings out of his hands.
The Toro Rosso driver started just outside the top 10 and was looking good to challenge his rival Carlos Sainz with a free choice on tyre strategy.
Instead, he spent the race playing catch up as the Canadian tagged the rear of his car at the first corner, causing him to touch the rear of Sergio Perez and lose his front wing.
“I’m just disgusted with what happened because we clearly had the potential to keep sixth place and that’s it. It’s annoying when this kind of thing happens,” Gasly told Canal Plus.
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“With him behind [Stroll], there’s a 50-50 chance that things will go wrong.
“It sucks, it really sucks because we had good pace, we had a good car, we worked well all weekend and when we see where Sainz finishes and what Daniil [Kvyat, ninth in the other Toro Rosso] did, there was clearly the potential to make a good result.
“Last race of the season, just to ruin your race with the first-corner incident, it’s clearly annoying.
“It put us one lap down from the first lap, and the whole race basically praying for a safety car, looking at the standings.”
Gasly’s only hope was that Sainz would also miss out on the top 10, but on the final lap, the McLaren driver passed Nico Hulkenberg into Turn 11 to claim the final point in 10th.
