2019 Review – Pierre Gasly: Stepping Back to Bounce Back
The end of the year is approaching, and it's time to analyze the drivers' performances in 2019. Motors Inside offers you a look back at Pierre Gasly's season, who, despite a very complicated start with Red Bull, made a strong comeback with Toro Rosso.
Following Daniel Ricciardo’s departure from Red Bull in 2018, the Austrian team had to choose a replacement for the Australian. The choice naturally fell on Pierre Gasly, who had had a very good 2018 campaign with an impressive fourth place in Bahrain.
The task was going to be tough for the Frenchman at Red Bull. Indeed, he would have to face one of the fastest drivers on the grid currently, Max Verstappen.
Although 7 tenths slower in qualifying than the Dutchman, this gap was also partly due to the difference in equipment the two drivers had.
The lack of confidence placed in Gasly was felt in his performances from the start of the season. Getting caught in Q1 due to a strategic error, the Norman only managed to climb to 11th place.
The following races were just as difficult for Gasly, who was more on pace with the midfield cars than with the leaders. It was not uncommon to see number 10 trailing nearly forty seconds behind the Top 5 or even a lap down, as in Austria, where he couldn’t even finish ahead of Lando Norris’s McLaren while his garage neighbor won the race.
While Helmut Marko and Christian Horner stated in the press that the Frenchman would remain with Red Bull until the end of the season. However, during the summer break, a press release informs us that it is now Alexander Albon who will drive the second Red Bull.
Relegated to Toro Rosso in a team that trusts him and that he knows well, Gasly immediately feels comfortable and scores points for 9th place as soon as he returns to the Faenza structure.
The next 8 races, the native of Évreux finishes in the points on four occasions. He is the only driver on the grid, except for the drivers from the top teams, to have reached Q3 four times consecutively.
The highlight of his 2019 season is undoubtedly his podium in Brazil, where, while he held seventh place throughout the race, he was able to take advantage of the incidents faced by the leaders to secure an unexpected second place with only 63 thousandths of a second ahead of Hamilton at the finish line.
Despite a very difficult start to the season due to his demotion from Red Bull and the death of Anthoine Hubert, Gasly still managed to rise and show that with a good car, he can achieve great things. Even if he missed out on 6th place in the championship by 1 point, it would have been tough to beat Carlos Sainz and his McLaren with his modest Toro Rosso.
