Karun Chandhok aghast at ‘naughty’ four-podium driver at Azerbaijan Grand Prix

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Karun Chandhok was far from impressed with some of the driving in practice ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Formula 1.

The two sessions on Friday saw multiple drivers hitting the wall and disrupting the two hours of running with red flags. Jacques Villeneuve mocked Charles Leclerc after he crashed out early on.

Pierre Gasly suffered a difficult day at the Baku City Circuit, setting the 18th quickest time in both sessions and floundering near the foot of the timesheets.

The Frenchman drove questionably midway through the second practice session, holding up Lando Norris in the final sector of the lap.

Chandhok wasn’t impressed and explained while commentating on the session for Sky Sports F1 that Gasly should have approached the incident differently.

Karun Chandhok claimed that Pierre Gasly’s driving was ‘a bit naughty’ in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix

The team have been enduring a difficult season, and the French team have lacked raw speed, struggling with an underpowered engine at Alpine.

In F1, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix has been more of the same. They had the lowest top speed of all 10 cars, losing lap time on the straights, which is difficult to recover from.

Some parts of the circuit are very narrow which makes traffic very difficult to deal with, particularly when drivers are driving significantly quicker than others.

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Gasly was going a lot slower than Norris at Turn 17, a very high-speed kink that leads onto the pit straight, and contact was narrowly avoided.

Chandhok wasn’t pleased and said: “No, honestly, if Gasly was going to bail out of it, he should have bailed out of it before the kinks. I think that’s a bit naughty.”

Alpine have improved in recent races and are consistently scoring points in F1

At the start of the season, Alpine were the slowest of the 10 cars in F1 and locked out the back row of the grid in qualifying in Bahrain.

They have improved over the year with Gasly and his teammate Esteban Ocon, scoring points in three of the last six races and battling in the midfield.

Due to their power deficit, events like the Italian Grand Prix at Monza this weekend and Azerbaijan don’t play to Alpine’s strengths.

They may also need to run less downforce than their rivals to compensate for their lack of power, to be competitive in a straight line.