F1: Where does Gasly’s Performance Leave Red Bull?

2019 has been one of Pierre Gasly’s worst seasons in his motorsport career. The Frenchman was promoted to Red Bull Racing after putting in some sensational performances in 2018 with Toro Rosso, notably a fourth placed finish in his second race of the year in Bahrain.

But since his step up to the senior team, it has been nothing but doom and gloom on track for the charming Frenchman, currently sitting 83 points behind his teammate.

So after nine races trading paint with the midfield, where does Gasly’s lack of pace and performance leave Red Bull Racing heading into the second half of the season and beyond?

After Daniel Ricciardo unexpectedly left Red Bull for Renault F1 Team at the end of last season, Red Bull forcibly backed its young drivers academy and decided to sign up the youthful and inexperienced Gasly for the forthcoming 2019 campaign. But while his team-mate Max Verstappen’s performance has hardly wavered, so far collecting 126 points to be ahead of both Ferrari drivers of Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc in the championship standings, Pierre has only accumulated 43 points for his efforts over the same nine events.

As such, Verstappen’s season has included three podium finishes including a win at the last race in Austria, Gasly’s season highlight by contrast was a fifth placed finish at Monte Carlo and his average finishing position so far has been 7.6 during the immediate campaign.

Not only has Gasly’s performances been sub-optimal during Grand Prix’s, but qualifying has been a nightmare for the Frenchman. As if you discount the Canadian GP, where Verstappen was caught out by Kevin Magnussen crashing his Haas car at the end of Q2, Gasly has qualified an average of 0.7 s slower than his Dutch team-mate throughout the season, and over 0.5 s slower at five of the nine races this year.

Some may argue that expecting Gasly to instantly be up to the same performance of Verstappen immediately is unfair and not the benchmark by which to judge him. And while that may be true up to a point,  the Frenchman needs to at least be backing up Verstappen and capitalizing on the Red Bull car’s pace and be close enough to put Ferrari and Mercedes under pressure where possible this season. But Gasly has been unable to do so.

After gaining confidence with better performances in races at China, Azerbaijan, Spain and Monaco; the Frenchman has fallen back with poor races in Canada, France and Austria, finishing behind at least one midfield car at each of those events.

So after nine races where Gasly has failed to deliver, what do Red Bull do now?

The positive news for the Frenchman is that Daniil Kvyat and Alexander Albon are fairly well-matched in the Toro Rosso, and after Gasly’s poor performance in the Red Bull senior team, it is unlikely that the Austrian team will take such a risk again. But at the same time, it is also inconceivable that Dr. Helmut Marko will stand for Gasly’s lack of performance in that Red Bull certainly beyond the conclusion of 2019.

After Gasly’s horrendous race in Austria, Marko told motorsport-total.com that:

“He was always looking for issues with the car, in the chassis. We have looked through this. There was nothing.

“The plan now is to support him as much as possible. He gets Max’s set-up from the start, because he’s the more experienced driver and has the more experienced engineering team.

“He can mess around with it, but he can’t seriously move away from it – he was experimenting with his set-up before and jumping from one extreme to the other.” – Helmut Marko

But how long that will last is another question entirely. As interestingly, just this week Mercedes have announced that they will release Esteban Ocon from his contract with the Mercedes Young Drivers Academy should the opportunity to drive for another team emerge.

Speaking to Motorsport.com, Toto Wolff said;

“There is this perception that he is a Mercedes driver, so maybe we need to set the record straight and enable him to pursue his career in a way that respects the investment and the support that Mercedes has given him, and he respects that very much, but equally doesn’t close doors for him,” – Toto Wolff

And with Ocon proving himself against Sergio Perez when he was with Force India in 2017 and 2018, he will certainly be an exciting prospect for Red Bull if they chose to replace Gasly at the end of the year. That is added to the fact that Verstappen knows how quick Ocon is having lost the 2014 European F3 Championship to the Frenchman (see pic), so it could prove to be a fascinating prospect.

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But similarly, rumours have now emerged about possible talks between Red Bull and Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault F1 Team team-mate Nico Hulkenberg about the German finally making the step to a top three team for the first time in his career. The German has compared favourably to Ricciardo so far this year with the Australian just edging the German in terms of race performances 5-4, with the pair tied on 16 points a piece after nine races. And as a regular on the Formula 1 grid since 2010, Hulkenberg doesn’t lack experience and will be a contrast to the youth of Verstappen, with the lack of experience has potentially harmed the team in 2019.

While there is plenty of space for rumour and speculation, a lot of water is set to pass under the bridge before Red Bull make a decision to replace Pierre Gasly with the Frenchman more than likely set to remain at the Austrian team for the remainder of 2019. However, the pressure on the personable Frenchman is steadily starting to build with a fundamental lack of performance from his side of the garage. And should that remain true for much longer, his Red Bull career will end before it has truly begun…