"We gave our position away," says Pierre Gasly, as he hits out at his team for early pit stop gamble that failed.

Running seventh, the Frenchman was the second driver to make a scheduled pit stop, 12 laps after George Russell had taken the brave gamble to switch to slicks.

However, over the course of the next couple of laps his rivals were able to overcut him, while the 'free' stop following his own teammate's accident, which allowed the McLaren pair to benefit, added to his misery.

"We had everything in our hands, and we threw it away because we decided to box too early," said the Frenchman at race end. "There was no communication, no dialogue, which I don't fully understand why.

"We took a gamble in a moment where we didn't need to," he added. "We boxed, everybody else stayed out on track, and we got overcut by four cars.

"Daniel was behind us, far behind, but stayed out on track, as we should have done it, and finished P5.

"So, nine points that we lost and nine important points, and yeah, I'm just sad, not happy with our performance."

Indeed, as opposed to gaining ground on Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri was leapfrogged by Aston Martin in the standings.

"I mean, in the position we were in you are ahead of your two main rivals, you have track position in Singapore, it's drying conditions, you know, the warm-up is going to be tricky. I just don't see the point of risking it like that. We just gave our position away!

"When do we get opportunities to score P5?" he lamented. "You know, this year it happened once in 18 races. So now it's frustrating because we're pushing really, really hard and we just didn't make a right call."

The Frenchman's criticism comes at a time there is mounting speculation over his future with the Faenza-based outfit, with talk of a move to Alpine set to be announced in the coming days.

Check out our Sunday gallery from Singapore here.