Gasly “struggling to believe” shock fourth place

Pierre Gasly said it is hard to believe his fourth place finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix for Toro Rosso.

He took his first points finish in only his seventh career start, having qualified fifth for the race.

“I’m still struggling to believe [it],” Gasly told media in Bahrain. “I think tonight when I go back to bed and just take time to think about our day I probably will realise a bit more.

“I just want to celebrate with the team. I don’t know where in Bahrain, it’s going to be tough to find a god place to celebrate but we’ll find a way.”

Gasly said the team went into the race wary of the threat from its midfield rivals, who it ended up beating by 12 seconds.

“We thought we were going to fight with the Renaults, with the McLaren. We knew Haas was really fast in the long runs.

“But we never really expected to finish P4. We got a bit lucky with the retirements but the car was fantastic, the pace was great. For me to line up on the grid next to Bottas and Ricciardo on the grid today was an amazing feeling and a great experience.”

Gasly revealed his car did falter once during the race. “We had a brake problem after 10 or 11 laps, I lost the brake in turn 11,” he said “The car started to slow down massively and I lost like 1.5 seconds. I was asking what’s going on, but it just came back straight after.

“It was a bit scary, after that everything went super-well. The strategy was great, the car was fast and I managed to put some good laps so an amazing feeling.”

Go ad-free for just £1 per month

>> Find out more and sign up

2018 F1 season

• McLaren staff told us we were “totally crazy” to take Honda engines in 2018 – Tost
• ‘It doesn’t matter if we start last’: How Red Bull’s junior team aided Honda’s leap forward
• Honda’s jet division helped F1 engineers solve power unit problem
• McLaren Racing losses rise after Honda split
• Ricciardo: Baku “s***show” was Red Bull’s fault

Browse all 2018 F1 season articles