“I lose a position today and nothing happens”: Pierre Gasly left 'extremely confused' with the F1 rules after Lance Stroll overtake

Pierre Gasly was surprised that Lance Stroll did not get a penalty for going off the track and gaining an advantage on him during an overtake at the 2023 F1 British GP.

Usually, when a driver goes slightly off the track and gains a few tenths of a second worth of advantage, which is enough for an overtake, he either has to give the place back or receive a time penalty. However, none of the above happened during Sunday's race.

Speaking about the incident to the media, including Motorsport.com, Pierre Gasly explained how confusing and inconsistent some of the penalty rules are in the FIA. He said:

"To me, it was quite clear, and it's been always in the regulations he can't leave the track and gain an advantage. On everything that I've seen, he had four wheels off the track passing me, and that's gaining an advantage. I got down 15 seconds last weekend for track limits, now I lose a position today [because] someone getting off the track and nothing happens."

The Alpine driver also gave an example of Victor Martins from Formula 2 and how he got a five-second penalty for the exact same offense.

"Formula 2, Victor Martins was in the lead and got a five-second penalty for the exact same thing, so I'm just extremely confused with what's going on at the moment."

Lastly, Pierre Gasly simply stated that it is just not right to go off the track and overtake a driver. However, he was puzzled as to why the FIA race stewards did not penalize the Aston Martin driver for it. Gasly concluded:

"Well if you go off the racetrack, you got to give the position back. Just as simple as that. If you try and you see you've been off the racetrack, just give the position back, and that's how I've been told racing by FIA. I've paid the price in different situations. It's just not fair not having that consistency."

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Lance Stroll feels Pierre Gasly did not give him any space during the 2023 F1 British GP

Lance Stroll and Pierre Gasly had quite a lot of incidents during the 2023 F1 British GP as they were racing each other for 11th.

While Gasly believes that Stroll should have been penalized for gaining an advantage by leaving the track and crashing into him later on, the Canadian claims that the Alpine driver did not leave him any space during their wheel-to-wheel battles.

After the race, Stroll told the media, including PlanetF1,

“No, I’ll meet him in the parking lot later! I got forced off the track both times I passed him, So I’m not really sure why I got a penalty because I was given no room. I got track limits for one and I was forced wide and forced wide and then the next time, I passed him again I was given no room."

At the end of it all, the FIA eventually gave Lance Stroll two penalty points on his super license for all the incidents during the 2023 F1 British GP.