Pierre Gasly says it is "difficult to understand" why Toro Rosso lacked pace at Formula 1's Singapore Grand Prix, with the squad putting in one of its worst performances of the 2018 campaign.
Toro Rosso had been buoyed by its better-than-expected performances at the previous two events, with Gasly taking points in Belgium and making it through to Q3 in Italy.
Toro Rosso had scored points at Marina Bay in each year of the hybrid era, peaking with Carlos Sainz Jr.’s fourth in 2017, and expected its STR13 package to suit the track layout.
But Gasly and Brendon Hartley qualified only 15th and 17th respectively and the Frenchman’s “gamble” of taking Hypersofts for the first stint failed to pay dividends.
“We need to take more time to have a look, because it’s difficult to understand why we were that much slower,” rued Gasly, who classified 13th, four spots ahead of team-mate Hartley.
“In the last two weekends were much better than we thought and we thought we had good odds for Singapore.
“Finally we were much slower than expected, so we need to review everything, to understand a bit more.
“We saw in qualifying, with windier conditions, I had loss of downforce in the corners, so there are many things we need to understand, because at the moment we don’t really have all the answers.”
Gasly attempted to extend his first stint on Hypersoft – having previously impressed with how he preserved the rubber in Monaco – but he hit the cliff and his pace rapidly worsened.
“Points were way too far to be achievable,” he said.
“We did look good after the start, as I went from P15 to P12, overtaking the two Saubers and gaining another position with the crash, so at that time I thought that if we had the pace and with a good strategy we might be able to score points.
“Then we kind of gambled with the Hypersoft in the first stint but there was a lot more degradation than what we expected.
“After 15 laps I started to struggle massively, we went up to 25 laps but it was really tough in the end.”
Toro Rosso’s advantage over Sauber in the Constructors’ Championship was trimmed from 11 to nine points as a result of Charles Leclerc taking ninth place.
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