Motorsport can hurt: 'Then I realised everything can change extremely fast'

Becoming a Formula 1 driver is something many children dream of. But Formula 1 and motorsport is not always fun, as Pierre Gasly has experienced. The Frenchman lost his good friend and fellow driver Anthoine Hubert in a crash at Spa-Francorchamps, and since then, Gasly has realised all too well that things can quickly turn around in motorsport.

In 2019, Hubert was killed after a crash during a Formula 2 race at Spa-Francorchamps. Gasly and Hubert had been close friends since they were little. The latter was well on his way to a seat in Formula 1 after good results in F2 that season. Since the fatal accident, Gasly has realised he needs to appreciate his life as an F1 driver more.

"I try to do it a lot more since what's happened with Anthoine, to be fair, and exactly as I say, it was a sort of realisation that everything can change in a split second, and I think from that moment, I really realised, obviously, it's an extremely high-pressure environment," Gasly told Channel 4 in an interview.

"You always observe and judge, but what really matters at the end is that you enjoy the ride and you enjoy what you're doing, especially with the people that you care about." Thus, Gasly stresses that being an F1 driver is not all fun. "You get very easily dragged away with all the action and just the intensity of this life," the Alpine driver continued.

Gasly realises he is a great role model for children who have the dream of becoming a motorsport driver. "I'm living such an incredible life which is a dream I've had since a kid, and millions of young kids, or not even kids, will dream to experience what I have, and it's just realising and appreciating what you have because you always want more."

"At the end of the day, I'm a human, and when I go home, and whether I have a good race, I always feel like, 'Okay, I deserve more. I could have done more, and I need more', but sometimes, it's also good just to appreciate what you have, and at the moment, we get to live it," Gasly concluded.