Breakthrough F1 result for Pierre Gasly as Toro Rosso makes Honda smile

Pierre Gasly was many people's driver of the weekend in Bahrain, the 21 year old qualifying in a fine sixth place and racing through to finish in fourth. It is only the seventh time in the team's history that it has finished in the top four; not a bad result two races into a new partnership with Honda.

It is Toro Rosso's best result since Singapore last year and Honda's best result since returning to F1 in 2015. Finishing ahead of both McLarens on the home turf of the team's main shareholder, the irony was not lost on anyone after the acrimonious split last season.

But credit to Gasly, who drove magnificently all weekend. Toro Rosso brought some new aero parts for the car this weekend and both drivers did well with them. Hartley was behind the eight ball all weekend, only getting the updated parts on Saturday and then hitting a bird in qualifying, so he missed out on a Top ten grid slot.

Then in the race he tagged Perez and was given a ten second penalty that he served at his stop and this dropped him out of contention for points.

Meanwhile Gasly was able to capitalise on the double retirement of Red Bull to secure his track position at the front and stayed clear of Magnussen, Hulkenberg and Alonso.

“It’s unbelievable, sixth in qualifying and fourth in the race; we never expected something like this. I’m super happy," he said.

“Big thanks to the team because the car was fantastic all weekend and today there was an opportunity and we had the car to take this.

"I had a nice fight with Magnussen and the pace was really good. I saw unfortunately both Red Bull cars had to stop, then after Raikkonen retired the team told me we had the opportunity to finish P4, so I gave everything to the end.

"The car has been fantastic since the beginning of the weekend, today I could just push flat out and the pace was great because I managed to pull away from the Haas. I need a bit of time to let this sink in."

The Honda powered car was 9th through the speed trap on 324km/h, although we have to be careful with speed traps as whether or not drivers had DRS when setting their time contributes. But in any case Gasly was faster throuh the traps than both McLarens.