Pierre Gasly was almost anticipating a massive crash with Sergio Perez in his daring move into Eau Rouge during the Belgian Grand Prix.
The Frenchman found himself in a similar position to Esteban Ocon two years ago in trying to pass the Mexican on the way into the infamous corner, but unlike in that instance, there was no contact and the AlphaTauri driver was able to secure the place going up the hill.
“Honestly, I thought we were in the wall. I’m not kidding!” he told Sky Sports post-race.
“I was inside and I thought ‘I can’t move more than that’, and at that point, we are going 280, 300 km/h. Sergio really squeezed me.
“I thought ‘I’m not going to lift, I’m going to make this work’. It was tight. Sergio is a hard racer, I knew it, but there for sure, my heartbeat went slightly higher. But I was committed and it was a great one.
“You expect respect from everyone, you know where the line is and you should not cross it. It was borderline, but there was space for one car and that was it.”
The move was part of a strong start to the race for Gasly, who was the only driver to start on the hard compound tyre.
And he admits the pace he had early on even caught him by surprise.
“I must say it was a bit difficult initially compared to the other guys with the option [medium], so I tried to keep it clean, stay close to the guys ahead. I was happy to make these two positions on lap one because we didn’t expect that,” he said.
“We expected to struggle a bit like the first three laps, and it was the opposite. I felt great. I had quite a lot of pace compared to the other guys and then I straight away went for some moves.”
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The benefit of the extra-long first stint Gasly put in, however, was a little negated by the crash involving Antonio Giovinazzi and George Russell.
“We knew a Safety Car between the start of the race and lap 20 would be a killer for us, but unfortunately, that’s what happened and gave the other cars a free pit stop,” he explained.
“We didn’t give up because we had a great car, good pace, so I pushed as hard as I could.
“After our pit stop, we exited almost last and we had to fight back through the field, but I enjoyed it and to recover to eighth was just great!
“I reckon the Safety Car cost us a potential fifth place today because I think we lost around 20 seconds there and finished seven seconds behind Ocon in fifth.
“We had a big job ahead of us today, so to recover the way we did was great and I think we can be very happy with that.”