Gasly will have 'nightmares' about Albon's Williams

Pierre Gasly says he expects to have "nightmares" about Alex Albon's rear-wing after being stuck behind the Williams in the Belgian Grand Prix.

The Alpine driver started from P12 on the grid at Spa and made up a couple of positions after a good launch, but struggled on a planned one-stop strategy with tyre degradation high.

He eventually became stuck behind Albon's Williams machine after a slow pit-stop, with the straight-line speed of the FW45 a well-known strength.

"I lost some time in the pitstop [which] lost the position to Alex," he explained to media including RacingNews365.

"I'll probably have nightmares of that Williams rear-wing because these guys, it seems like a different category on the straights.

"We sort of bet everything on our top speed this weekend, went really low downforce and it was strong all weekend, but I don't know why I was that slow on the straights."

Gasly eventually squeezed by Albon and homed in on a points position, but fell 2.8s short of former teammate Yuki Tsunoda at the flag to claim 11th, to go with his third place in the Sprint on Saturday.

Gasly wants answers on Alpine's top speed

Gasly's race was also hamstrung by getting caught behind Oscar Piastri on the first lap after the McLaren's contact with Carlos Sainz at Turn 1.

"I had a very good start, made two positions and I was on the inside line which I thought was going to be amazing," Gasly said.

"Until I saw Oscar like 150kph slower than everyone else and I was just stuck behind.

"So I slammed the brake and I just waited for a gap to pass him, but it was just a train passing by it was very painful to watch one-by-one.

"All the guys passing me in from I think ninth or 10th, I ended up 17th so not the start we hoped."