A piece of debris hit Gasly's visor at the start

Sunday of Pierre Gasly (Toro Rosso) in Russia amounted to a short ordeal. The Frenchman, who started from the last places after a penalty concerning the replacement of mechanical parts on his Honda engine block, retired after a few laps following brake problems.

Brake failure today. Issues since the start of the race, and we lost completely front brakes in Lap 4. DNF, not a fun Sunday but first proper mechanical failure we have since the beginning of the season, it happens. Quick switch, important weekend coming in Japan next week! pic.twitter.com/xgiaCoY3JZ

— Pierre Gasly (@PierreGASLY) September 30, 2018

But what the cameras didn't show was an unusual incident: the 2 GP2016 Series champion was hit by a part of the car. Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull), right in his helmet. “I think Daniel lost a carbon element, which went straight into my visor. It was really scary », explained the future Red Bull driver in 2019.

Pierre Gasly even feared that the debris would cross his visor. « I thought he was going to come in my eye but it bounced off the visor and bounced into the cockpit. Then, in turn 4, I got rid of this piece. »

The halo was of no use. “The debris went under the halo. I'm going to analyze this. » The speed of the impact appears to have played a role in this incident. “I was coming out of turn 2 when the debris hit me, so I wasn’t going that fast. Perhaps the impact would not have been the same if I had been launched at 300 km/h. »

Discover the analysis of the Russian GP carried out by our special correspondents in issue 2185 of AUTOhebdo, available from Monday evening in digital version on all platforms, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.