Pierre Gasly was one of the stars of Qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix after making it through to his first top ten shootout before setting the sixth fastest time to make it onto row three.
The Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda driver will move up one spot to fifth once Lewis Hamilton takes his grid penalty for his unscheduled gearbox changes, but for Gasly it has been a very strong weekend to date, finishing inside the top ten in all free practice sessions, and then again in Qualifying.
“My best qualifying in Formula 1!” said Gasly. “It’s been an amazing day…the team has been working very hard since the beginning of the weekend and it’s good to see this effort repaid.
“I felt really good in the car so I’m very happy. Since the first lap in FP1 I felt we were pretty fast, but we knew we had to put everything together to get into Q3 and we made it! It’s pretty mega!”
After qualifying inside the top ten for the first time, Gasly now turns his attention to ensuring he manages his first top ten finish, and although he expects to see the likes of Hamilton and Max Verstappen coming through the field, he hopes to continue as best of the rest.
“Hopefully I can get the best start possible tomorrow – we saw in FP2 that our long run pace was good so let’s see!” said the Frenchman.
“Of course we expect the front runners like Hamilton and Verstappen to come back quickly, but I think we will be in the fight with Renault and Haas hopefully, so we need to work really hard tonight and make sure we have a car as fast as today and aim to score good points in the race.”
