Pierre Gasly's retirement from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was down to a loss of gear synchronisation, he has revealed.
After failing to advance from Q1, Gasly lined up in 18th, one place behind team-mate Esteban Ocon, but reported on the formation lap that he potentially had trouble with the gearbox on his Alpine.
He took to the start, but it quickly became clear that his race was over on the first lap as the team called him back to the pits to retire, to follow on from an 18th place finish in Bahrain to leave the one-time Grand Prix winner 21st and last in the Drivers' standings after two rounds.
Team-mate Ocon was caught up in the Kevin Magnussen-train and managed 13th as Alpine's poor start to the season continued in Jeddah with the reliability concern for Gasly.
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"I lost sixth gear, then lost synchronization of all the other gears and at the start, I had no gears which were synchronised," Gasly told media including RacingNews365.
"The highest that I could go was fifth and so we had to retire, and I am disappointed for the team because we are going through a difficult time.
"The laps to the grid were fine, but on the formation lap, the first time I engaged sixth gear, I just lost it completely, so we need further investigation, but it just wasn't our weekend.
"But I can see how much effort and energy everyone is putting in to make improvements and make things better.
"We don't really get the reward of it at the moment, so it is not easy but we'll keep our head high and keep working to find the performance."
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