Lewis Hamilton didn’t waste the chance to take a shot at Red Bull as he praised Pierre Gasly’s win at the Italian Grand Prix.
The Briton looked to have the race under control at Monza but a 10-second stop/go penalty for pitting while the lane was closed under a Safety Car saw him drop out of contention.
His misfortune paved the way for Gasly to give AlphaTauri their second victory in Italy, following Sebastian Vettel’s famous win in 2008.
And the six-time world champion heralded how the Frenchman has responded since returning to the sister Red Bull team just over a year ago.
“Pierre is just a really nice guy,” Hamilton said via RaceFans. “I think he has a lot of talent and I don’t think he was necessarily treated fairly at Red Bull in the end when he got demoted.
“It’s not easy for a driver when that happens and so I empathise with that.
“I think to then build the confidence up in a not-as-quick team, and then come around with some really great performances he’s had this year already with that car and then to get himself a win, it’s not easy to do that.
“I’m really impressed, I think he’s done a fantastic job and deserves the success and hopefully that creates an opportunity for him moving forwards. But also he beat the team that demoted him so it’s definitely got to hurt them.”
Gasly’s performances compared to Alex Albon have led to calls for the 24-year-old to get a second chance alongside Max Verstappen.
And asked about that possibility, he told The Race: “I think I’m ready, but it’s not up to me to make that call.
“The only thing I’ve done since they moved me back to AlphaTauri is to just focus on myself and just show what I can do when I get the right tools in my hand.
“I’m really happy at the performance we’ve shown, not only talking about [the 2019 podium in] Brazil but generally we’ve been pretty strong most of the time, we’ve had some really strong qualifyings and really strong races. We’ll see what happens.
“There have been many, many strong drivers in Toro Rosso. I’m really happy to be one of two that managed to get a win for this team.
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“Obviously I guess the strong results should be rewarded with something but we’ll see what happens.
“At the moment it’s not something I really want to think about, I just want to enjoy this moment because it’s my first win in F1 and we’ll have time to think about this later.”
This victory though is just the latest high in a rollercoaster career for Gasly and he admits the success he’s had is well beyond what was imaginable.
“I still feel I’m quite new to this world and I’m improving year after year and just getting better the whole time,” he said.
“I would have never expected that [a win] a year ago when I got back to Toro Rosso. The podium [in Brazil] was already unexpected and a big, big highlight last year.
“I wasn’t ready for that feeling as well, even though you always try to imagine the best scenario the best start, the best race, everything in the best way.
“We know that [a win] only happened once in the whole history of Toro Rosso in Formula 1,” he added.
“[Team boss] Franz [Tost] actually told me ‘I’m really proud of you because we’ve done it in the dry now’.
“It was very difficult but I’m just very happy to show my speed.
“I worked on myself day after day race after race since last year just trying to get stronger all the time and I’m really happy today I get the reward of all the hard work we have done with AlphaTauri and also with Honda.”
