The pair touched at the restart following the early red flag, with Gasly losing what the team later estimated as around 33 points of downforce, which equates to a potential lap time impact of up to 0.7-0.9 seconds.
Ocon also suffered some damage and thereafter both drivers had an even trickier race than they had anticipated with the difficult A524, eventually finishing 15th and 16th, with Gasly behind.
“We had an amazing first start and managed to move up three positions,” said Gasly.
“The second start was very good, I managed to pass Esteban and go alongside Yuki [Tsunoda], and then unfortunately I got sandwiched, with Yuki turning left and Esteban turning right.
“He [Ocon] touched me and took the whole left side of my floor off the car.
“So I was down, the team thinks, a bit less than 40 points of downforce. So after that, it was pretty much game over. I was trying to stay out there hoping for another red flag to change it.
“That was it, pretty much, just a racing incident but it cost us a lot. It was a very, very long, very long, very difficult afternoon.”
Gasly said that the Enstone team did at least make progress in Japan after introducing a package that included a substantially changed front wing.
Source: Autosport