28/04/2018
NEWS STORY
Pierre Gasly: "It was probably the scariest moment of my career! I was sure I was going to crash into Brendon because it's the part of the track where we're going at 320kph. Brendon had slowed down massively and I had to change direction when I saw he was slow, but I didn't know if he was going left or right but I managed to avoid him. I'm really disappointed that I couldn't make it to Q2. I was improving by sixth/seven tenths which means Q2 was on the cards, this would have been a good result after the tough weekend in China. It's a big shame for the team but it's good that in the end we avoided a crash. It's clear that no one wanted anything like this to happen, but it's the second time we've had a coming together so we need to make sure that we avoid situations like these."
Brendon Hartley: "It was a disaster of a day. I hadn't done a lap until the point of the incident because the previous ones were interrupted by yellow flags. This lap was coming along really well and I was happy with the car, but I clipped the inside of the wall very lightly. At the beginning I didn't think there was any damage so I was still pushing, then I realised going through the fast left-hander that there was a puncture. I had to slow down immediately trying to avoid hitting the wall, but Pierre was coming very quickly behind and I completely misjudged it. When I looked in the mirrors I moved to the left and that's the same way he wanted to go. I made a complete mess of it. I'm really disappointed and I owe him a big apology because that was really average."
James Key (Technical Director): "It was an eventful qualifying session for us, unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. Brendon didn't get a clean lap together during the first outing due to the yellow flags, so he had to abort his opening run. Pierre on the other hand did and his lap was reasonable at the time, but there was clearly quite a significant track improvement as Q1 progressed, something we've seen throughout the weekend's sessions. For the second runs – Pierre was improving and he was well up on his initial lap time, so if he had finished the lap he would have been safely through to Q2. Unfortunately, Brendon had a puncture just ahead of Pierre and they came across each other with a high speed differential, leading to a near miss – this situation was very well managed by Pierre to avoid a collision. Sadly, that meant that his tyres, battery, time available and so on were not set for another lap, so he effectively had to abandon his qualifying after the incident. It's a great shame because I think his pace was looking quite reasonable. Maybe Q3 wasn't on the cards today but close to it was possible, which would have been a good place to be given the uncertainty of how the tyres will perform tomorrow. Now we'll never know and we are not going to be starting the race where we want to be, but equally as we've seen in the past here, it can often be a very busy and eventful Sunday afternoon where anything can happen. We'll make our plans this evening and hope to recover tomorrow."
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "We had some bad luck in qualifying, without which I think Pierre could have got to Q2. On the PU side, figuring out the best way to run the energy management at this track is a complex question, looking for the right compromise between the tight right angle corners and the very long straight. This also has an effect on the whole package. However, we have worked hard with the engineers and drivers to try and find the right balance. We will now focus on race preparation to be ready to make the most of any opportunity."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Baku, here.