Pierre Gasly described the Belgian Grand Prix as “the most emotional race I ever had” after the shock news his childhood friend Anthoine Hubert had been killed the day before at Spa.

“You are not ready at 22, 23 years old to live this kind of moment, to lose one of your best mates,” said Gasly after finishing ninth in today’s race.

“I’ve grown up with this guy since I was seven in karting. We have been room mates, we’ve lived in the same apartment for six years. We’ve been classmates, I have studied since I was 13 until 19 with him the same professor in a private school.

“I feel shock, I did not realise how it can go so fast. It’s just terrible. I’ve already planned to see all our friends we had with Anthoine tomorrow because none of us really understand and realise what happened yesterday and it’s just super sad.”

The race was won by Charles Leclerc, who was also friends with Gasly and Hubert when they were young.

“I told Charles before the race ‘please win this race for Anthoine’ because we started racing in the same year, Charles, Anthoine and myself. And actually Anthoine won the French cup in 2005.

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“We raced together for so many years and we all knew each other. Between Jules [Bianchi] a couple of years ago, now Anthoine, I think it’s really terrible news for French motorsport. They were two great, amazing characters. It’s just really difficult to realise.”

Gasly admitted the crash had given him a new appreciation of the dangers of motor racing.

“Over the summer break I was talking about safety [with] people who are not drivers and they were like ‘F1 is so safe now, it’s completely different than it used to be before’. And I must say I agred with them because it’s not something you think about.

“When you are in the car, I feel so safe I feel like almost nothing can happen to us. But at these kind of speeds it just brings you back to reality that whatever happens at 200, 250, 300, you can do whatever you want, I think there well be always this high chance of death and that’s also something we accept as drivers.

“But unfortunately there was this thing that happened to remind everybody it’s a really dangerous sport. I’m just really sad that it was one of my closest friends in racing.”

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2019 F1 season