Gasly: “Really fragile” AlphaTauri front wing caused “shocking” failure

On his final run in Q3, Gasly’s front wing failed as he ran over the Turn 15 exit kerb, puncturing his front-right tyre in the process.

Nevertheless, it was still another outstanding qualifying performance from Gasly whose set to start Sunday’s race from fourth on the grid.

Gasly was surprised that his front wing failed after not exceeding track limits.

“I don't know, I mean we know our front wing is really weak compared to others - I lost it in Bahrain, I lost it in Monza, I lost it in Sochi over the different kerbs, so it just seems to be really fragile,” he explained.

“I need to review it exactly, but it didn't seem like I went super wide on it but clearly it just broke suddenly.”

Without Gasly’s front wing failure, the Frenchman was on course to potentially beat Valtteri Bottas to third on the grid.

“Qualifying has been amazing, the whole weekend so far has been really, really good,” he said. “This track, I think is one of my favourites, as well, just driving, nice car balance, we are able to really push to the limit and yeah, it's been really great to drive here.

“Last lap in Q3, I was improving 1.5 tenths, so I think we were very close to Valtteri, I don't know if he was improving or not, but our lap was coming really well. Outside of Turn 15 pushed a bit more, it was quite shocking inside of the car to lose the whole front wing and just blew the whole front right tyre, so that was it.

“At the end of the day we did our job, qualified fourth behind the two top teams and it's been so far really impressive weekend from our team.”

Gasly is confident his choice to start on the softs rather than the mediums will pay off given the long run down to Turn 1 on the opening lap.

“I didn't want to start on the medium, it's a pretty long way until Turn 1 and from the start of the weekend, for me it, was really clear I wanted to maximize the start performance and adding to Lap 1 and I think we made the right choice there,” he added.