Pierre Gasly: ‘Turn your TV on for the start in Australia – it might be memorable’

“I advise you to be sitting with your TV on in Australia, because it could be one that everybody remembers.”

If he weren’t going to be on the grid himself, Pierre Gasly would eagerly watch the start of Formula 1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

There are reasons to believe chaos might ensue when the lights go out in Melbourne. F1 has implemented new chassis and engine regulations, both of which could greatly influence the start sequence.

Engine-wise, the removal of the MGU-H makes it harder for cars to reach the turbo’s right operational window for the start; this has fallen to the internal combustion engine, with drivers reaching higher revs for a longer period of time before the actual launch. The tricky process means cars can easily suffer slow getaways or even go into anti-stall.

Additionally, on the chassis side, Oscar Piastri questioned the potential use of active aerodynamics before Turn 1: “A pack of 22 cars with a couple hundred points less downforce sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.”

Hence Gasly’s comment, though he cautiously refrained from elaborating on his statement that “it could be one that everybody remembers”, adding: “We'll find out, I'm not too sure myself. But yeah, it is definitely going to be more tricky than it used to be.”

Pierre Gasly, Alpine

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

The Alpine driver actually believes all F1 teams will figure out how to take proper starts “in the space of a couple of weeks or months”.

“But as it stands now, after only two weeks of testing, we can see that it's not going to be easy in Australia,” Gasly insisted.

“But that's part of the list, among a lot of other situations, which might not be easy. That's why I think in Australia, reliability and getting to the end of the race [are] going to be challenge number one and priority number one. And as simple as it sounds, because it's not something we would have said in the past with the previous cars, these cars are extremely complex.”

Drivers needing to rev the engine for a long time for an optimal getaway might be an issue for backmarkers in particular, as the last drivers to reach the starting grid may not enjoy as much time as they wish before lights out.

Asked if backmarkers could be in trouble and the procedure might require tweaks ahead of the season opener, Haas’ Esteban Ocon replied: “I think it would be nice if they kept it the same.

Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

“We are obviously working on that with the team. It's clear that the turbo lag is a very big topic, but we have to adapt to what the rules are, and it would not be nice I think for the top three to wait like 1m30s until the cars are stopped, and have cold tyres into Turn 1.

“I think you are going to see a lot more struggling of starts and a lot more differences compared to how the years before were, where the worst start was losing one or two positions on the grid – now you could lose the whole lot,” the Frenchman added, echoing Oscar Piastri’s opinion on the matter.

“So, we are improving step by step. It's still early days and unfortunately [Bahrain] is not the best track to do starts as well, because the grip is very low, so that helps the engine. But, yeah, it's interesting. It's not like the old rally cars or the old cars with simple turbos where you can get it up to spin quite easily. What we do as drivers doesn't have much of an input on that. It's very strange. But, I think it's the same for all of us.”