Pierre Gasly suffered an unfortunate setback during the first practice session when he hit a rabbit.
The unfortunate rabbit was killed in the impact, which also caused damage to the front wing and floor on Gasly’s Alpine A525.
“Very sadly, there was – I couldn’t tell if it was a small cat or a big rabbit, and it turned out that it was just a big rabbit jumping across the track,” Gasly told the official F1 channel after the session. “I could not avoid it, so I had quite a big impact on the front wing.
“Unfortunately that was it for the rabbit, and it also broke the front wing. It was not ideal, not the end of the session we wanted.”
Gasly struck the rabbit as he approached the Variante Alta chicane. He told his team: “Oh my god, I hit an animal,” and pitted immediately afterwards. He did not rejoin the session, which was red-flagged soon afterwards due to Gabriel Bortoleto’s crash.
The Alpine driver said the impact did a significant amount of damage to his car. “I must say it’s quite unfortunate because obviously we always try to look after our parts and do the best job we can, so when such things happen it’s not great.
“It’s done quite a bit of damage on the front wing and the floor but some of the guys managed to do great work and repair it. But I think we could have all done without it.”
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He rebounded from that setback to record the third-fastest time in second practice, behind only the McLaren drivers. Gasly said he was encouraged by his car’s performance after their poor weekend in Miami.
“It’s been a very, very good Friday,” he said. “From the first lap I could tell the car was in a much better place than in Miami. I’m glad we managed to answer some of the question marks we had after the last race.
“I’m very pleased with the feeling in the car. The car reacts the way I want, I’m really able to be at the limit and push it to the maximum. So it’s a nice feeling, the performance is there.”
However he expects some of the drivers he finished ahead of today will be stronger in qualifying. “Obviously we know from Friday to Saturday, others usually keep a bit more in their pocket. But I think it’s quite fair to say it’s probably been the best Friday so far this year.”
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