Gasly bounces back but still has 'some margin to do better'

©RedBull

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Red Bull's Pierre Gasly bounced back from a crash in Friday's practice session to qualify in fourth place for Sunday's German Grand Prix.

Gasly's blunder in FP2 required his Red Bull crew to change his chassis, such was the damage inflicted to his FP15.

While the Frenchman was comfortably outpaced in qualifying by teammate Max Verstappen, his P4 performance in Q3 was a good first step towards making up for a crash that team boss Christian Horner labeled as "annoying".

Verstappen rues Q3 mistake that cost him shot at pole

"Good to qualify on the second row after the long night the guys had," he said, referring to the Red Bull mechanics having to break the overnight curfew to rebuild his car in time for Saturday's sessions.

"Thanks to them for putting the car together," he added.

"It was a good qualie," he said. However the French driver had his last lap time deleted by the race stewards for exceeding track limits - although it didn't change his position on the grid.

"It didn't change the position in the end and I think it was a positive day," he agreed.

©RedBull

He said that he was feeling more comfortable in the car today than he had been on Friday.

"There are still areas to improve. I think we could have done a bit better. But yes, things are coming together.

"Still some margin to do better, but we'll keep pushing."

Gasly added that the pace of his teammate in qualifying gave him reason to hope that Red Bull can still give Mercedes a run for its money in Sunday's race despite the Silver Arrows' edge in qualifying.

"Looking at Max, he was pretty good. If it rains anything could happen," he predicted. "If it's dry as well, anything can happen! It should be an exciting race."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.