Gasly pace even a shock for Toro Rosso

Pierre Gasly admitted that Toro Rosso were shocked by the pace that left the Frenchman starting fifth for the Bahrain Grand Prix. The Frenchman was sixth quickest overall but was one of those to benefit from a five-place grid penalty for Lewis Hamilton due to a change of gearbox.

Gasly qualified dead last for the Australian Grand Prix, undone by a spin in Q1, but he delivered a series of scintillating laps in Sakhir.

Pre-season optimism looked to have fizzled out in Melbourne as Honda's unreliability came back to haunt Gasly and the poor performance left Brendon Hartley as the only driver not on the lead lap.

However, the former GP2 champion will be hoping to bag his first F1 points under the lights, with Toro Rosso also perhaps gaining extra satisfaction at qualifying ahead of the McLarens of both Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne.

"The fact we've brought so much performance is really, really encouraging," he said.

"I think the estimate of the performance from the upgrade was quite small and it ended up being a lot larger than estimated, which is also fantastic. It's normally the other way.

"I had the feeling this was going to be a stronger track for us anyway, compared to Melbourne.

"But I wasn't expecting the performance increase from the upgrade that I had on the car today.

"I don't think anyone in the team expected us to take such a leap forward, to be one of the leading cars of the midfield.

"Obviously it's a tight battle still but it's an incredible effort.

"In Melbourne we were not there. I qualified 16th, but that was more or less where we were - we saw the pace in the race - that was where we were.

"We really made a huge step forward.

"I didn't know we'd get through to Q3 but it worked out. After I got through I just managed my best lap in F1 in my first Q3.

"Just great timing - I was really happy about it."