Pierre Gasly says he could envisage himself flying into the air after almost crashing with teammate Brendon Hartley in qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The Frenchman came across his slowing teammate around the blind turn 14 and almost careered into the back of him.
Gasly said afterwards that he fully expected to be in a huge incident, coming across Hartley at almost 300kph with the Kiwi in the middle of the circuit with a puncture.
“It was pretty scary,” he said. “On the second run I was behind Brendon. The lap was coming nicely – I was seven-tenths faster than my best lap in the end. I don’t know what happened to Brendon but he slowed down massively before Turn 15.
"I was doing around 320km/h and I saw he was almost stopped. So I tried to avoid him but I was sure I was going to crash. I could already see myself in the air. I don’t know how I avoided it, but it was pretty scary moment.”
Gasly however hasn't given up on his hopes for the weekend to score a strong result despite a difficult qualifying session.
“Racing is great in Baku, so everything can happen with safety cars and crashes and overtaking opportunities at Q1.
“Everything is possible and we need to focus on tomorrow. We’re still struggling a bit with performance so it’s not going to be easy, but for sure we have more pace than where we are after qualifying.”
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