Pierre Gasly says he was in huge amounts of pain in the closing stages of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and needs to see a doctor to understand why.

The Frenchman was running in eighth position after a strong race but says from the late Virtual Safety Car onwards he was in significant discomfort for reasons he doesn’t understand.

Gasly managed to hold on for four points but says it was the most pain he has ever felt in a racing car and wants to try and find the cause.

“I think we can be happy and on my side it’s been the most painful last 15 laps of my career,” Gasly said. “I don’t know what’s happened with my intestine, but I was dying inside the car. I was screaming because of pain and just happy the race is done and we managed to secure P8.

“No [never had it before], my intestine on braking and every left corner was like, I don’t know… have a tear, but I feel like every left turn someone was stabbing me on the inside of the intestine so it was not nice.”

Although the g-forces are high in some corners in Jeddah, Gasly says the fact the pain was on one side of his body suggests it wasn’t induced by that.

“It was mainly like on that right side. So I need to see the doctor.

“The last five laps was just about surviving, and I was just massively in pain so was just counting the laps to end and that’s why I’m happy we managed to finish the race in P8.”

RACER understands Gasly was in less discomfort once outside of the car and was feeling in a better state by the time he left the circuit on Sunday night.