‘Optimistic strategy’ caused shock Gasly exit

Red Bull’s Pierre Gasly says his Q1 elimination was down to an over optimistic strategy with the team going for a single run.

The Frenchman was making his debut for the team and, after two major crashes in testing, Melbourne was the place where he could start to right the wrongs.

However, the 21-year-old completed only one run in the first of qualifying’s three sessions and when track evolution caused times to tumble, he ended up P17 for the race tomorrow  – despite being just 0.144s shy of team-mate Max Verstappen who went through in tenth.

Lewis Hamilton would go on to secure his sixth consecutive pole in Australia, with Mercedes partner Valtteri Bottas close behind as the Silver Arrows demolished their competition.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Gasly said: “We’ve been a bit optimistic with one run and I’m really, really disappointed with that.

“That was our strategy. I was pretty happy with my first lap, ended up one tenth behind Max, so only lost a little bit.

“We just didn’t expect others to improve so much on the second run.”

Not the start we were looking for in Melbourne 😫 At the end of Q1 Max is P10 with a 1:22.876 and Pierre P17 with a 1:23.020 #AusGP 🇦🇺 #F1 pic.twitter.com/VJlAOgDDlK

— Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) March 16, 2019

As soon as the pack started pumping in fast times, Gasly said he feared the worst.

“When I saw the improvements they were doing, they were winning almost a second, I quickly understood that it would be pretty tough,” Gasly added.

“It’s disappointing because FP3 was better, I felt more comfortable with the car in qualifying and I think we had the pace to get a decent result.

“We got caught out by track evolution and it cost us a lot.”

Follow live timings and super-quick updates from Australia via the PlanetF1 race centre

We have set up a fantasy team and league for the new season! The code to join is: a27391208c