Pierre Gasly experienced a frightening near-miss when debris struck his helmet visor near the eye on the opening lap of the Russian Grand Prix.
The Toro Rosso driver said a piece from Daniel Ricciardo’s car hit him at the start of the race.
Advert | Become a Supporter & go ad-free
“At turn one Daniel lost a piece of carbon which went straight into my visor,” Gasly said. “This was really scary because I thought it was going right through and it was straight in my eye.”
He explained that the debris grazed the visor and entered the cockpit, forcing him to remove it a few corners later. “It touched the visor and then came in the cockpit, so in turn four I had to take the carbon piece and throw it from the cockpit and then after that the brake just got really bad.”
Gasly described how quickly the incident unfolded. “At the time I had like five tenths of a second just to see it flying and hitting the visor. It was a piece, maybe a winglet; it came from contact with Daniel and someone and it pointed towards me and straight into my right eye.
“When I saw it coming I thought ‘fuck, it’s going through the visor’ and fortunately the visor is really strong because it hit it and fell down in the cockpit.”
He noted the outcome could have been much worse at higher speed. “I don’t know for sure, but the speed has an effect on the impact. At the time I was coming out of turn two so I wasn’t going that fast, so I don’t know if maybe the speed is a problem with it. Luckily it wasn’t as big as I felt it would have been at 300[kph].”
The FIA announced earlier this year it will mandate a stronger helmet specification from the 2019 F1 season. On that topic Gasly said: “The visor seems to be pretty strong but maybe we need to keep trying to improve the thickness of the visor.”
@HazelSouthwell contributed to this article.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter andgo ad-free
2018 F1 season
- F1 feared “death knell” for Drive to Survive after Ferrari and Mercedes snub
- McLaren staff told us we were “totally crazy” to take Honda engines in 2018 – Tost
- ‘It doesn’t matter if we start last’: How Red Bull’s junior team aided Honda’s leap forward
- Honda’s jet division helped F1 engineers solve power unit problem
- McLaren Racing losses rise after Honda split
Browse all 2018 F1 season articles