Though Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were at odds with each other, the Formula 1 stewards blamed them both for the first lap crash at the French GP.
Ocon, carrying some damage from contact with Romain Grosjean at Turn 1, for which he was later penalised, would sweep across the track entering Turn 3 where Gasly was trying to go down the inside.
The result was inevitable with the Toro Rosso smashing into the Force India, taking both Frenchman out of their first home race and requiring a Safety Car to clear the debris.
“I took a good start, I was alongside Romain, I had one wheel already over the white line so I was already on the edge of the track,” Ocon explained afterwards.
“There was nothing, nobody on the [other] side of Romain and I got a massive hit, so from that I think I would’ve retired already, the hit was so big that all my side and probably the radiator was damaged.
“And after that, Pierre lost it on the brake and hit me from the back.”
In his defence, Gasly suggested it was more the drastic change of line across the track from his compatriot that resulted in his collision.
“I saw that he hadn’t seen me and he was going to cross completely to the inside, so I tried to brake even more – I could see already what was going to happen,” he said.
“I tried to cut as much on the inside as possible but I couldn’t disappear.”
In their assessment, the stewards slapped both drivers with reprimands, believing they were both overambitious.
“The driver of car 31 [Ocon] was optimistic in his move from the left of the track across to the apex of the corner. The driver of car 10 [Gasly] was also overly optimistic in his late braking into the corner,” their findings read.
“The stewards are of the view that both drivers made errors which contributed to the collision.”
