Official: Gasly replaced by Albon starting from the Belgian Grand Prix!

Started a week ago, here is the first bombshell of the summer break: Pierre Gasly is ousted from Red Bull! The French driver remains in the Austrian lineup but is relegated to Toro Rosso, the team of his beginnings (26 Grand Prix between September 2017 and November 2018). In his place, Alex Albon is promoted for the remainder of the season. The change will be effective from Friday, August 30, with the first free practice of the Belgian Grand Prix.

To justify this choice, this press release from Red Bull, published on the team’s website: « Red Bull is in a unique position: having four talented drivers under contract who can rotate between Red Bull and Toro Rosso. The team will use the next nine races to evaluate Alex’s performance, with the goal of making a decision on who will race alongside Max in 2020. »

Only in his first season in F1, Alex Albon has already impressed the paddock by scoring 16 points in 12 races, with a sixth-place finish as his best result in Germany two weeks ago.

On the contrary, Gasly pays for a complicated start to the season, far from Max Verstappen, with 63 points for the Frenchman, compared to 181 for the Dutchman! A record light years away from the two victories of his garage neighbor, while Gasly hasn’t even been on a podium so far. His best result remains a fourth-place finish at Silverstone in early July. Now remains to be seen the evolution of his career, which has just taken a serious setback. The decision is nevertheless surprising: Pierre Gasly had been confirmed until the end of the season at Red Bull by Helmut Marko, before the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Bring it on! 💪 @alex_albon to join Max from the #BelgianGP 👉 https://t.co/TLaNqHHChJ #givesyouwings pic.twitter.com/6RcMhslmHt

— Aston Martin Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) August 12, /f1/actualite/23509-gasly-je-sais-que-ca-va-payer.html