Pierre Gasly knows where gap to Max Verstappen comes from

Pierre Gasly

Gasly knows where gap to Verstappen comes from

Can he make it up?

Matthew Scott

Sunday 21 April 2019 16:41

Pierre Gasly is confident that he knows why he has lacked so much time to Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen across the first three races of the 2019 Formula 1 season. Gasly has struggled to tame the RB15 so far, something he puts down to an aggressive driving style.

The Frenchman was selected as Red Bull's replacement for Daniel Ricciardo after his shock move to Renault, but Gasly has failed to impress so far.

Gasly failed to score a point on his Red Bull debut after finding the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat too tough to pass, and has finished eighth and sixth in Bahrain and China respectively, although securing an extra point in Shanghai by setting the fastest lap.

Article continues under video

By contrast, Verstappen was on the podium in Melbourne and mixed it with Sebastian Vettel before settling for fourth in China. The Dutchman has qualified on average 1.1 seconds ahead of his team-mate this year.

In matching machinery, cornering style will be the crucial difference between them, with Gasly aware of exactly where the difference lies.

"It's not so much turn-in," he said. "Most of the time it's mainly exits, just putting the power down.

"I'm sliding too much, basically. I think it's being a bit too aggressive with the car, asking a bit too much to the rear axle so stressing the rear.

"At this moment we know that's one thing we're trying to improve: the rear potential on the exit. [I'm] a bit too aggressive so there are things we try to improve to go around it and try to make it a bit better through these areas.

"I think there are still areas where we can make it a bit more suitable to me, and also on my side to basically adapt my driving to the car to extract more performance."