07/07/2018
NEWS STORY
Pierre Gasly: "Not bad today, especially after a more difficult beginning to the weekend, as we had some issues which didn't allow us to run much. After Brendon's crash in FP3, we changed the whole front suspension and consequently also the setup, which meant we went into Qualifying a bit blind. The team was awesome as they finished the job so quickly for Qualifying, and in the end it was great! I felt really good with the car, so let me thank all the guys in the garage - great effort, fantastic job! Looking at the GPS, we're good in the corners but we're losing some time on the straights compared to our main competitors, so it's difficult to fight against these guys. However, the race is tomorrow and we'll try and take opportunities as they come."
Brendon Hartley: "Today's crash is another testament to these modern Formula 1 cars and safety. The fact that I was able to walk away from such an incident with no consequences just shows how far safety has come in the sport. I'm fine, but the car definitely wasn't! I'm disappointed I missed out on Qualifying, as yesterday we gathered a lot of data preparing for today, and the first couple of corners the car was feeling pretty good. I was already three or four tenths of a second quicker than yesterday but then, a couple of corners later it was all over - I hit the brake pedal and all of a sudden the front suspension broke. However, I have full faith in everyone that they will get the car rebuilt and ready for the race, I'm remaining optimistic and we'll come out fighting tomorrow."
James Key (Technical Director): "It was a tough day. First, apologies to Brendon for the issue he had on his car this morning. The important thing is that he's OK, which is a testament to how safe these cars are, however, it is not something any of us wish to see. It appears to be a suspension failure, the nature of which we have not seen before. Nonetheless, we are looking into it in detail and as a precautionary measure did not continue with Pierre's car in FP3 this morning until we understood what the problem was and acted accordingly. Brendon wasn't able to participate in Qualifying with the amount of damage he had on his car, so we're gearing up to start him from the pit lane tomorrow. Pierre had to go into qualifying with virtually no laps in FP3, therefore, no opportunity to run the test items planned or refine the car more, with the obvious disadvantage that goes with that. However, Pierre was happier with the car in Qualifying than in free practice yesterday, we gave him three runs in Q1 so he had a better reference after the disrupted session this morning. Q2 is where I think we are with pace here at Silverstone and Q3 was not a possibility today. We have been quite competitive in the high speed, while we've improved on the medium speed corners as the weekend progressed. Our straight line speed and low speed corner performance has been down, so we know coming away from this event, and also Austria last weekend, what we need to concentrate on at the moment. The long run pace we had yesterday looks in line with our competitors, so we'll do everything we can to try and have a clean race tomorrow starting from 14th with Pierre, and take every opportunity that presents itself. With Brendon, we hope to make good progress from the back."
Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director): "It's a big relief to know that Brendon is okay after his high speed crash in the morning session. Pierre did well in qualifying, given that he had very little running in free practice. The team did an excellent job to change the suspension on his car and get him out in time for Q1. Of course this has been a difficult day for the team as a whole, but now we focus on tomorrow's race."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Silverstone, here.