Gasly happy with Honda performance at Monza

Pierre Gasly says that the performance from his Toro Rosso Honda was a surprise but that he was very happy with his starting position for the Italian Grand Prix. The Frenchman will start from ninth after making a surprise appearance in Q3.

Speaking to the media after qualifying, Gasly said he was pleased to be starting inside the top ten having been very skeptical of his chances before the session begun.

“Before qualifying we thought it would be difficult to get through to Q2, and finally we made it through Q3 and qualified P9. It was just so much better than what we expected.

“It was probably one of my best laps of the season so to do it in Italy for the home race of the team is an even better feeling.

“I don’t know which results Honda has at Monza over the last four years, but clearly this is showing after Spa, we had a good surprise, we managed to score points in a really power sensitive track.”

Having scored well in Belgium, Gasly will be once again hoping to score at a power circuit, something that is a weakness of the Honda power unit at this stage but the Red Bull-bound driver hopes that results such as these will drive Honda on to improve the power unit.

“We had a really good surprise, but it shows we are going in the right direction,” he said.

“I think they can be really happy and motivate them to bring us even more. But clearly, if you look at the last few years, they are clearly improving. That’s really positive.”