Red Bull's Pierre Gasly has been disqualified from Saturday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying results for exceeding his fuel flow limit.
The incident occurred during Q1 when the Frenchman topped the timing screens, however he had already been due to start from the pitlane for Sunday's grand prix, having missed a call to the weighbridge during practice.
Therefore his disqualification doesn't have any impact on his qualifying result, as he was always set to drop to the back.
“During the qualifying session 1 at 17:13hrs car number 10, driver Pierre Gasly, had exceeded the maximum allowed fuel mass flow of 100 kg/h when doing the fastest lap,” an FIA statement from technical delegate Jo Bauer stated.
Gasly was also handed a gearbox penalty, but again this has no impact on his starting position.
Despite the raft of sanctions, Gasly was at least happy with how the car felt around the Baku street circuit.
"It was nice to end Q1 in P1 but knowing we’re starting from the pit lane tomorrow, the most important thing was just to get a feel of the car on low fuel.
"It felt really good and it’s probably the first time this year I’ve felt that good in the car, so I’m really happy. I felt confident and I’m always working and trying to adapt myself, and it’s working step by step. I think we’re going in the right direction and overall it was a positive qualifying session.
"We didn’t expect that kind of pace because we didn’t turn the power unit up, we went into race mode to save some engine mileage and in the end the performance was good. I think we have a good car here and I was hoping Max would get a good result in Q3.
"This race track is just insane with all the things that can happen so I will race flat out until the last lap. We have a car good enough to recover and score good points tomorrow, so I will push for it."
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