Gasly hails 'unexpected' result for Toro Rosso Honda in Bahrain GP

After a DNF in the Australian Grand Prix due to an engine issue, it seemed that Toro Rosso is on for a difficult season with Honda like McLaren. However, it was all-together a different scene in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Pierre Gasly had an aero upgrade on his STR14 from Friday along with new engine parts, while Brendon Hartley had his aero fitted on Saturday. It seems like the update worked wonders as Gasly finished no less than ninth in all the seven sessions run during the weekend.

He was seventh, eighth and ninth in the three practice sessions, following it up with two nine place finishes to get himself into Q3. Once in the final leg, he got himself into sixth position leading the rest of pack.

However, a penalty to Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton meant he was to start fifth - his best-ever starting position, alongside the Haas of Kevin Magnussen. The Frenchman was off to a tremendous start after he managed to overtake Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo in Turn 1.

While the Australian got him back in Turn 4, but a subsequent retirement meant Gasly was again in fourth position. After all the stops, a fifth place was for his taking barring any reliability issues in the race.

But after the retirement of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, he was promoted to fourth again where he would finish - a good 12.812s ahead of Magnussen. Even though he was over 62 seconds behind winner Sebastian Vettel and over 55 seconds behind Hamilton, but fourth place was a dream result for the 'Driver of The Day' award winner.

"It is just amazing," he said with a beaming smile. "I am still struggling to realise what’s happened today because we never expected to finish P4 in our second race weekend with Toro Rosso Honda.

"I am just super happy for the team, for Toro Rosso, for Honda they had a really tough last couple of years and today the car was fantastic. It is just unbelievable. I started P5, for me already yesterday was an amazing day with my best qualifying in Formula 1.

"So, to line-up on the grid next to Bottas and Daniel was a fantastic feeling. We knew that the car was fast but we didn’t expect to finish in the Top 5, we thought that we will be fighting with the McLaren and the Renault.

"But finally the car was just so fast today and I could push flat out and just managed to keep the position with Magnussen behind. I don’t know what to say, it is just an amazing feeling and only on the second race weekend of the season, so just unbelievable.

"It was [also] a massive experience for me to fight against these guys when I am only starting in Formula 1. I need to take a lot of experience and to do this, it is really useful for myself," the Frenchman added after beating his previous best of 12th position.

Gasly [Copyright: Red Bull Content Pool]

Gasly [Copyright: Red Bull Content Pool]

It was also Toro Rosso's best result since the 2017 Singapore Grand Prix when Carlos Sainz finished fourth as well. It was Honda's best result since returning in 2015 after beating Fernando Alonso's fifth place on multiple occasions.

"It was a very exciting race and it is satisfying to have seen both our cars perform well to take the chequered flag," said Honda's Toyoharu Tanabe. "Special congratulations must go to Pierre who drove brilliantly all weekend to finish 4th, to give Honda it's highest finish since we returned to Formula 1 in 2015.

"In the two weeks since our difficulties at the Australian Grand Prix, everyone in the team, at the track and back in the UK and Japan, has worked very hard and this nice result is a well-deserved reward for all our efforts.

"We feel we have made some progress, improving our reliability and it is also clear that the aero updates introduced here worked really well," the Japanese added. Team boss Franz Tost was equally delighted with the result, hailing Gasly's 'veteran-racer' type efforts.

"We arrived in Bahrain with a new aero package and also Honda came with some modifications, and from the beginning onwards on Pierre's car - where we fitted the upgrades - we saw that we improved the performance in comparison to Melbourne," he said.

"On Friday we had both cars on different setups - Pierre was with the new specifications while Brendon was on the previous version - but after a few runs we realised the new upgrades worked as expected and as calculated from CFD and the wind tunnel. On Saturday both cars were identical.

"To finish in fourth position in the second race of the year is really a very positive sign from Honda and from Red Bull Toro Rosso side. I'm quite confident that we have what we need to keep this level of performance – maybe not finishing fourth all the time because we mustn't forget that Verstappen and Ricciardo didn't finish the race.

"But nevertheless I'm convinced that points are possible in all of the races. I want to thank the Research & Development department of Honda in Sakura, they did a fantastic job during the winter months significantly improving the performance, as well as the reliability, and the result is that we are now fighting for front positions. Thank you also to the aero department in Bicester, they really did a good job because all of the upgrades worked as expected."

While Gasly had a terrific run, teammate Hartley had to bring home the car in 13th position. However, the Kiwi was penalised for a formation lap goof-up with Force India's Sergio Perez on top of the 10 second time penalty he got during the race for hitting Perez. Eventually, with 30 second added to his time, he dropped to 17th as a result.

[Image courtesy: Red Bull Content Pool] #F1 #Motorsport #ToroRosso #RedBull #Formula1 #BahrainGP #Honda #Japan #Italy #UK #Bahrain #PierreGasly