Szafnauer warns Gasly: 'Just drive carefully'

Due to a confrontation with Lance Stroll in Mexico, in which Gasly gained an unfair advantage according to race control, Gasly now has 10 penalty points on his licence. Twelve penalty points will result in disqualification for the next race. These penalty points remain valid for 12 months, which in Gasly's case means he will not lose his first points again until the end of May 2023. At that point, the Frenchman will already have driven seven races for Alpine and he will have to do so without incurring any additional penalty points. Not an easy task.

'You just have to be careful'

Szafnauer therefore urges Gasly not to take any risks. "I have seen what happened in Mexico," Szafnauer said. "I am not biased on it. As far as I'm concerned, it was fifty-fifty in terms of fault. But you just have to be careful."

Should a driver indeed be excluded for a race, all penalty points would immediately expire. Therefore, some commentators have already suggested that Gasly might be better off bringing in some extra penalty points in Brazil, then missing the last race of this season and starting his career at Alpine with a clean slate. Szafnauer laughed that strategy off. There is a good chance that if the FIA suspects Gasly is deliberately bringing in penalty points there will be much stricter consequences.