Gasly: Pace hurt by last-minute FIA ruling

Pierre Gasly believes the FIA hurt his chances of scoring points at the Japanese GP when they withdrew permission for Honda to change his engine settings under parc ferme conditions.

Gasly’s STR13 suffered oscillations during qualifying with the team then granted permission to change the post shift ignition retard settings.

That, though, was withdrawn once Gasly arrived on the grid.

“In qualifying I had some calibration issues so I didn’t have the best setting and was hurting the reliability — hurting the power, but also the reliability — for the race,” he said.

“It was a pretty big concern ahead of the race so we ask them if we could change it. Then they first accepted and then after they reverted.

“I went back [to Saturday’s] setting which was a bit down on power and not ideal for drivability as well.”

The Frenchman, despite starting P7, failed to score on Sunday.

Honda were “surprised” by the FIA retracting their permission.

“We submitted the parc ferme change request to the FIA,” said Honda F1 technical director Toyoharu Tanabe.

“They approved it, that’s why they issued the document.

“I need to find out exactly why they changed their decision; what was done by someone.

“We were surprised, because they said yes. Suddenly, on the grid, they said no.

“We need to respect the FIA’s decision, so we didn’t use it.”

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