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Gasly hit with debris on visor: "Really, really scary"

17:12, 30 Sep 2018

byNicolás Quarles van Ufford

Pierre Gasly's race in Russia only lasted six laps as he had a mechanical DNF, but the Frenchman revealed that his helmet was hit by a piece of carbon debris, leaving him very scared.

Needless to say, being hit by a piece of carbon fibre at the speeds at which F1 cars go can be extremely dangerous, especially if it's in the eye region. Fortunately, Gasly's visor and helmet could withstand the impact, leaving the 22-year-old unharmed.

"I think Daniel [Ricciardo] lost a piece of carbon, which went straight into my visor, so this was really, really scary," Gasly was quoted by Autosport after the race.

"I thought it was going through and straight into my eye, and finally it touched the visor and then came into the cockpit.

"In Turn 4 I had to take the carbon piece and throw it from the cockpit.

"At the time I had like five-tenths of a second to see it flying and just hitting the visor - maybe a winglet that came from somewhere, I think contact with Daniel.

"But it came my way, pointing towards me and straight in my right eye.

"When I saw it coming first I was like, it's going through the visor.

"Finally, the visor is really strong, it hit it and fell into the cockpit."

Having gotten away from it all with just a scare, Gasly added that safety is definitely something the F1 should be focussing on, as he knows it could've gone differently if the same thing would've happened on the straight, where speeds exceed 200 mp/h.

"The speed as well has an effect on the impact. At that time I was coming out of Turn 2, so I wasn't so fast.

"Maybe the impact with it luckily wasn't as big as it would have been if I would have been at 300km/h."

Gasly's race finished after just six laps though, as his brakes malfunctioned. His teammate Brendon Hartley suffered the same fate, giving Toro Rosso their first double retirement since Canada 2017.