Gasly accuses Racing Bulls of costing Alpine points at the Dutch Grand Prix

Pierre Gasly has accused Racing Bulls of deliberately blocking him during the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, claiming their tactics cost Alpine a points-scoring finish in Sunday’s race.

Gasly had climbed to eighth after a strong start from 11th on the grid, but his first pitstop dropped him behind Arvid Lindblad, who was already out of contention for points after a drive-through penalty for a yellow-flag infringement. What followed was a 17-lap ordeal. While Nico Hülkenberg cleared Lindblad with ease, Gasly could not, and Yuki Tsunoda — Lindblad’s Racing Bulls team-mate — used the delay to overtake the Alpine into Turn 7, setting the move up through the banked Turn 3 curve.

A second pitstop left Gasly behind Tsunoda again, requiring a further 10 laps to find a way past his former team-mate. The cumulative time lost proved decisive: Gasly finished 10th, one second behind Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin, having surrendered roughly four seconds to the Spaniard while stuck behind Lindblad despite running fresher tyres.

“VCARB ruined our race in the middle part of the race, played a team game for the championship and did it well,” Gasly said. “It just made me lose a position to Nico and Tsunoda and I don’t know how many seconds of race time. Congrats to them, and I can’t wait to race them.”

The irony is that Racing Bulls themselves failed to score points, with Tsunoda and Lindblad finishing 11th and 12th. The strategy benefited neither driver individually, but it did prevent Alpine from extending their advantage in the constructors’ standings.

Gasly made clear the episode will not be forgotten. “It’s just annoying, but it’s Zandvoort — can’t really overtake, and this is going to change in the coming tracks,” he said. “Good thing is I have a good memory, so I’m going to make sure we smile at the end of the year.”

Lindblad, however, was unmoved when presented with Gasly’s comments. “That’s a nice story,” the rookie said. “In the end, yeah, I played the team game. If he has a good memory, then fine. We all fight as hard as we can.”