Pierre Gasly has detailed his “shock” after he was demoted from Red Bull following a horrid 12 races with the team.
The Frenchman replaced Daniel Ricciardo for the 2019 season, but didn’t make it past the summer break when his struggles forced the team’s hand.
Gasly was replaced by Toro Rosso rookie Alex Albon, with the drivers completing a straight swap.
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Red Bull is putting faith into 12-race young gun Albon, while Gasly was another casualty of the team’s high expectations.
Mobbed by reporters in Spa ahead of this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, the 23-year-old — wearing his Toro Rosso colors — revealed he was told by Red Bull he would see out the 2019 season with the team.
After the Hungarian Grand Prix, where Max Verstappen had again dramatically outperformed Gasly, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner was adamant that it was the team’s “intention” to keep the French driver in the car for the rest of the season.
However, just a week after Horner’s comments, Red Bull announced Albon would replace Gasly.
Horner said the team would retain Gasly for the rest of 2019. How’d that pan out?Source: Getty Images
Speaking to media, Gasly said an “8:42am” phone call by Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko was how the news was broken to him, which was different to what he had been initially told by the team.
“I found out in the morning it was decided,” Gasly said.
“Of course it was kind of a shock and [I was] disappointed because it’s not what I had been told before or after Budapest.”
“The team said I was going to drive until the end of the year, and that’s what I believed.”
Having lost five-season driver Ricciardo, Red Bull knew they needed patience with Gasly.
However, the patience ran out after just 12 races, with Verstappen a whopping 117 points behind and carrying much of the team’s point scoring load.
Gasly talks to the media in the paddock at Spa.Source: Getty Images
The season began with frustration as Gasly crashed heavily in pre-season testing, and he was 1-11 down in qualifying and race head-to-heads with Verstappen to the summer break.
The only time he beat Verstappen on track was when the Dutchman was wiped out by Sebastian Vettel at Silverstone.
Gasly admitted he had no idea what changed in the time between being told he would stay and when he was given the tap on the shoulder.
However, while disappointed, a pensive Gasly conceded “it’s not going to change the decision right now”.
“Whether I understand it or not it’s not going to change it,” he said.
“I’ve not spent too much time thinking about it.
“The only thing I need to focus is on is performing in these nine races with Toro Rosso at my best.”
Regardless, he admitted he is “partly responsible” for the situation, but acknowledged he learned some valuable lessons.
“There are things I could have done better over that first half of the season,” Gasly said.
“I think all of us were responsible for the lack of performance and points we ended up having.
“There were many things going in the right way even though we still had a few issues.
“Now there is no point to discuss about it and I don’t really want to talk about it because it’s over.
“I’ve had some good lessons that’s going to be useful for the rest of the season, but I need to focus on what I can change and what’s going to make me faster in the coming months.”
