Having qualified sixth and seventh for the 2018 Japanese Grand Prix, both Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly failed to take advantage of their starting positions and came away from Japan with no points for their Scuderia Toro Rosso team.
“I don’t feel like I did too much wrong at the start of the race, but I just couldn’t get the power down,” commented Hartley. “For the whole first stint I didn’t have much grip and poor traction cost me a lot of time. Then on the second set I found myself in traffic, I made a couple of overtakes on both of the Williams but in the end I got stuck behind Marcus (Ericsson). It’s a real shame that both cars are outside the points after such a promising result in Qualifying yesterday.”
Lewis Hamilton took his ninth win of the season. Hartley finished in 13th position while Gasly crossed the line in 11th.
“It was a good start as I managed to overtake Brendon and the first stint was great,” said Gasly. “I felt good with the car behind Romain (Grosjean) and I was pretty close to him, but then we went too long on the first stint as we didn’t want to pit into traffic but then several cars undercut us. We put the Soft tyres on during the pit stop and I enjoyed the battles and overtakes on the first few laps, but then I started to have massive blisters on the rear tyres and I was trying to survive at the end.
“It could have been better today so we need to analyse more deeply what happened. We probably didn’t make the best decisions, but that happens sometimes, it’s easy to say in hindsight that we could have made different choices. It’s just a shame after such a good Qualifying yesterday, it would have been great to reward the team and Honda here in Japan for their home race with some points today.”
“Today’s result was disappointing, given our excellent showing in qualifying yesterday,” commented Toyoharu Tanabe (Honda F1 Technical Director). “Pierre ran in the points for much of the race, so it was unfortunate that he was unable to fight off Sainz in the closing stages and dropped down to eleventh.
“Since we arrived in Suzuka, we have had fantastic support from the Toro Rosso Honda fans, which was a great boost for all of us. So it was a shame that we were unable to repay them with a point or two. However, the frustration we all feel at the lack of points will be turned into motivation as we carry on working for the final four races and, at this point of the year, even looking to 2019.”
Race result
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 53 1h27m17.062s
2 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 53 12.919s
3 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Renault 53 14.295s
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 53 19.495s
5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 53 50.998s
6 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 53 1m09.873s
7 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 53 1m19.379s
8 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 53 1m27.198s
9 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 53 1m28.055s
10 Carlos Sainz Renault 52 1 Lap
11 Pierre Gasly Toro Rosso/Honda 52 1 Lap
12 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 52 1 Lap
13 Brendon Hartley Toro Rosso/Honda 52 1 Lap
14 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Renault 52 1 Lap
15 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Renault 52 1 Lap
16 Sergey Sirotkin Williams/Mercedes 52 1 Lap
17 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 52 1 Lap
– Charles Leclerc Sauber/Ferrari 38 Retirement
– Nico Hulkenberg Renault 37 Retirement
– Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 8 Retirement
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