Pierre Gasly has hailed an unbelievable weekend after bringing his Toro Rosso-Honda home to a fourth-placed finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
After starting the race in fifth place thanks to Lewis Hamilton's gearbox penalty, the Frenchman fought hard throughout the race, passing senior Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo at the start and even tangling with the Haas of Kevin Magnussen at Turn 11 early on in the proceedings.
Gasly's result means Toro Rosso equalled its best result, aside from its 2008 win at Monza with Sebastian Vettel, and it was Honda's best in Formula 1 since they returned in 2015.
"We never expected something like this so just super happy…" said Gasly. "I’m struggling to realise but big thank you to the team because the car was fantastic all weekend and today there was an opportunity with the car to take this opportunity. I don’t really know what to say, I’m just happy about today.”
"Yeah, I mean the start was great, I overtook Daniel [Ricciardo] in Turn 1 so this was good and then after he passed me again in Turn 4 but Kevin [Magnussen] was behind me and was really fast and then, yeah, with the DRS he managed to get me in Turn 1 and I knew I had to overtake him straight back, otherwise the race would be more difficult behind him.
"I managed to take him on the exit and then after that the pace was great, we managed to pull away and the degradation was really low, and, yeah, just the car was fast and I managed to push hard until the end so it was a great day."
The STR13 managed to carry solid speed throughout the race without a hint of reliability trouble and afterwards scenes of sheer jubilation were seen in the pitlane and in the Toro Rosso garage as Gasly crossed the line, the 2016 GP2 champion made a bold statement by claiming it is possible to continue this vein of form into future races.
He added: "Hopefully, I think we will have the answer in a week, but yeah, I think definitely we made a step this weekend. I don’t know if we’re going to be as fast during the other races but yeah, we’ll see. At the moment we just need to take the time and enjoy because it’s a great day for the team, for Honda, and also for myself.”
