Pierre Gasly finished third in Saturday's F1 Sprint at Spa-Francorchamps, but the Alpine driver said he didn't feel safe during the wet race. Heavy rain had delayed the start of the Sprint and when the race did get going, the cars circulated for four laps behind the Safety Car in order to disperse some of the water on the surface. However, even with the rain having stopped, Gasly said this was not enough to give him decent visibility as the race started. "I could not see a thing," Gasly told media, including RacingNews365.com . "If Oscar [Piastri] or Max [Verstappen, who finished second and first respectively] was in the middle of the straight, I would have been straight inside him. "I just couldn't even see 10, 20 metres ahead of me. You're just hoping for the best, but I didn't feel safe."
Gasly relieved at lack of incidents
Earlier this month, a multi-car crash in wet conditions at Spa claimed the life of 18-year-old Dutchman Dilano van 't Hoff. A similar accident at the Eau Rouge/Raidillon complex in 2019 saw Gasly's friend and compatriot Anthoine Hubert lose his life, and the Frenchman noted his fear that history would repeat itself. "When they restarted I was really hoping no guy gets off the track or [stops] in the middle of the straight because we know obviously what's happened," said Gasly. "It's not really a question of conditions because the conditions were probably raceable, but the problem is the visibility in the spray. "At the moment it's so huge out of these cars, the water just stays in the air. "I was in P6 and I could not see anything, so I can only imagine how bad it was at the back of the pack. "I'm glad everything went safely today. But all you need is just one guy to be stopped at the wrong place in the straight and it can go wrong very quickly."
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