Pierre Gasly was thrilled with finishing sixth in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with the result bringing his total points tally in the 2021 F1 season so far to 100 points. The Frenchman started from P6 on the grid and admits it was a challenging race to navigate, given its eventful nature and three starts, but was pleased to hold on to his position. This result also enabled AlphaTauri to secure sixth spot in the Constructors' Championship, with the team having amassed a 43-point advantage over Aston Martin in seventh. "[I'm] happy," Gasly told media including RacingNews365.com . "P6, 100 points for me in the championship, [and] personally this was the target we tried to [set] ourselves for a very good year, and that's what we achieved so [I'm] really pleased with that."
"Focus is intense"
The Grand Prix marked Formula 1's debut visit to the high-speed Jeddah Corniche Circuit, and Gasly says that maintaining focus during the action-packed event was not always easy. "[The race was] really eventful," Gasly explained. "In terms of keeping the focus, [it was] probably the most challenging I've ever had, because between all the red flags, all the starts, all the VSCs [Virtual Safety Cars], [it was] just a lot of distractons. "It's a very high-speed track, so focus is really intense, and I think overall we did very well. "I don't think our pace was fantastic. For whatever reason, we were quite slow in the straights, but [it] was not easy for us. But I'm really happy with the result." It was not such a good day for Gasly's teammate Yuki Tsunoda. The rookie driver started from P8 on the grid, but eventually finished in 14th out of 15 runners after colliding with Sebastian Vettel on Lap 22. Tsunoda received a five-second penalty for the incident and apologised to Vettel after the race.
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