“I’d had a crash in winter testing, and from that moment on the season never really got going. Then I had a tough first two races with Red Bull and the media just ate me up. Anything I said in the press was twisted into an excuse for my form, and nobody really stuck up for me.”
In addition to a lack of support in the public eye, the Frenchman has also suggested he may have been the victim of unequal treatment by Red Bull of its two drivers.
“The car wasn’t perfect, and I was doing my best to try to improve and learn each week, but like … here’s what I’ll say about it: It was a difficult time for me at Red Bull because I didn’t feel like I was really supported and treated the same way as others there have been. And for me … that’s something that I just can’t accept.”
“I was working my ass off every day, trying to get results for the team, but I was not being given all the tools I needed to succeed. I would try to offer solutions, but my voice wasn’t heard, or it would take weeks to see changes.
“I was never going to be a fit — it was never going to work”
“For whatever reason, I was never going to be a fit in that seat — it was just never going to work.”
Gasly felt he may have finally got somewhere in making requests for changes to the team, before he was then abruptly dropped by Red Bull after Hungary ’19.
“I called our team principal, Christian Horner, just to ask him what I could be doing more of on race weekends to improve, and to see if he could take a closer look at my side of the garage to see what could be done” he said. “Christian said he would do all he could. And that was that.”
Gasly has shown a remarkable upturn in form since being demoted back to what is now AlphaTauri. He scored a podium at the season-closing Brazilian GP in 2019 and before claiming an unprecedented maiden win at Monza the year after.
Despite the improvement in his results, with some feeling Gasly to be one of the best drivers of 2020, a Red Bull return is looking unlikely for the Frenchman. The fatal blow might be a breakdown in the relationship between Horner and Gasly.
In the recently released Drive to Survive S3 Netflix series, Gasly hears Horner commenting on his progress, prompting a bitter reaction from the Frenchman: “The way they treat this is a joke.”
No further love appears to be lost as during the same episode Horner says in an interview: “From a team point of view, there’s been no-one pushing internally to say: ‘We’ve got to have Pierre back.'”
In the full article, Gasly pays tribute to his friend, Formula 2 driver Anthoine Hubert and describes the devastating effect of the young Frenchman’s death at Spa in 2019.
He says that he used Hubert as an inspiration to focus on his racing after being dropped by Red Bull, and that he felt him watching after his win at Monza last year.