Pierre Gasly labelled Toro Rosso’s performance during qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix as “amazing”, as he clocked the sixth best time.
Gasly was a top 10 contender through practice at Sakhir and made it through to Q3 for the first time in his career, where he went sixth, to ensure he led the midfield battle.
Lewis Hamilton’s five-placed grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change means Gasly is poised to line up from fifth position.
Only once during the hybrid era has a Honda-powered car started from higher up on the grid, when Jenson Button lined up third in Austria two years ago.
“The car was fantastic in the beginning of the weekend, we saw that we had some good potential but to be P6 in qualifying is just amazing so I’m just really happy,” he said.
“I think we need to go through the data to understand why we were that fast today, actually, because we had small upgrades on the car but seems to work much better than what we expected.”
Gasly remains wary that the STR13 is stronger over one-lap than in race trim, but is confident he can score his first Formula 1 points during Sunday’s Grand Prix.
“I think in terms of pace in the long runs we seem to be pretty ok in terms of degradation,” said Gasly.
“We know it’s usually quite a bit tougher for us in the race, with the energy management and everything but the car seems to work fantastically this weekend.
“I think we have a great opportunity to score our first points and yeah, I really hope that we’re going to be able to make it up tomorrow.”
Toro Rosso team-mate Brendon Hartley is set to start from 11th place on the grid as he put in his best qualifying performance in Formula 1.
