13/05/2018
NEWS STORY
Brendon Hartley: "I had a clean start and made up a few positions on the first lap. The mechanics did an amazing job to get the car ready for today - it was actually finished last night - we just had to do the car setup this morning. We decided to pit under the first safety car and go straight on to the medium to effectively do a one-stop. It worked, but it meant we lost a lot a couple of positions in the beginning. It was difficult to overtake today, I think some of the cars around us had a bit more top speed which made life difficult. I had a good overtake on Marcus at the end to get 12th and if I had made the overtake a little bit earlier there would have been the chance for 11th as well, because the pace was definitely there at the end of the race."
Pierre Gasly: "Starting from P12, we were two positions away from P10 so points were clearly the target. Unfortunately, we couldn't achieve any, which is a shame. It's only the fifth race of the season but it's a missed opportunity. The crash with Romain at the start was a big mess, I saw some space on the inside with Nico and I tried to cut the corner as much as possible, but suddenly he came back completely towards us. It took both Nico and myself out. It seems like every weekend I have a peak of adrenaline with different incidents! Clearly it's a big shame not to be able to fight with the others and get a good result. The impact was big but I am fine, I'm just disappointed to be out on lap 1, because you work all weekend for the race and the chance to fight for points, but the excitement ended pretty quickly. Now we just need to focus on the test next week."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "Unfortunately, this was not our weekend. Yesterday we faced a heavy crash with Brendon in qualifying. In the race today, it was difficult to make up places because, as we know, in Barcelona it's not easy to overtake. Pierre was unlucky at the start of the race, he couldn't do anything to avoid the crash with Grosjean. It was unfortunate for him and the team because I think he could have scored some points today. The fact is that we were off the pace here, and now we need to concentrate on Monaco, targeting to get back into the points."
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "Before the race, we had hoped for a points finish with Pierre starting from twelfth on the grid. Unfortunately, through no fault of his own, he was caught up in Grosjean's accident and had to retire on the opening lap. The whole team did a good job last night to fix Brendon's car after his crash, allowing him to finish the race. After the chequered flag, Brendon pulled over immediately as we spotted an anomaly on the telemetry, but it's nothing serious. Now we have a busy week ahead, with two days of testing here in Barcelona, while also preparing for the next race in Monaco."