Pierre Gasly believes that the FIA shouldn’t “question our skills” amid the lengthy delay to the Monaco Grand Prix starting in wet conditions.

The race was delayed by an hour in the Principality much to the frustration of many fans.

The FIA said the decision to delay the race was due to safety because Formula 1 hadn’t had a wet session during the Monaco race weekend.

Gasly said after the race to MotorLAT and other media outlets that the FIA shouldn’t be concerned about the drivers’ abilities and he enjoyed the extra challenge: “I don’t think they should question our skills I think this is part of our job and when it’s hot that’s also when we are challenged and our skills are challenged.

“And that’s also what excites me personally but I think at the end the safety, the vision was really poor so it was the right thing to do.”

The Frenchman started in a lowly P17 and took a lot of chances on the twisty streets of Monte Carlo

He eventually finished in eleventh place behind Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel after an admirable drive.

He said: “It was really tricky at the start but at the end we took some risks, we gambled and i’m pleased with our mentality especially starting from where we were.

“I had a lot of fun fighting with these cars trying to find different lines, trying to find some space when in Monaco with these walls it just seems like once you put a car it doesn’t feel like there is much space to do it.

“And it was really exciting I’ve enjoyed a lot today driving these cars in these conditions on this track.” 

The 26-year-old was disappointed not to grab P10 at the end and the final points scoring position but highlighted some good points to take from the race weekend.

“And I’m just a little bit sad not to be rewarded with a point at the end because we probably deserved it but we lost quite a lot of time in our first pit stop 6, 7 seconds in the second pit stop around 3 seconds of race time we lost probably cost us a point. 

“At the end I think there is a lot of positives to take from that weekend when we had free practice in the race today so that was great."