Red Bull: Pierre Gasly like a different driver at British GP

Red Bull

Red Bull: Gasly like a different driver at British GP

Finally something positive for the Frenchman.

Martin Macdonald

Tuesday 16 July 2019 17:30

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has praised Pierre Gasly for his performance at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, saying he looked like a completely different performer to the one who has been struggling all season.

After Daniel Ricciardo surprised everyone by joining Renault, Red Bull opted to fasttrack Gasly from junior team Toro Rosso as his replacement. It hasn’t been a happy team move as of yet, as up until the weekend he had been outperformed by team-mate Max Verstappen in every single 2019 race.

However, he bested the Dutchman for the first time on Sunday as he finished fourth, just missing out on his first podium place.

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That came after increasing criticism and speculation that he could be replaced by Red Bull. This time, though, he is receiving nothing but praise.

"I think Pierre has done a very good job all weekend," said Horner.

"Turning the page from Austria, that was a really tough weekend for him, and coming here [he was] just focusing on what he is doing and not worrying what his team-mate was doing.

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"Just getting back to basics, he has been like a different driver all weekend.

"From the first session [at Silverstone], he has been competitive. He has built on that in FP2, and in all three elements of qualifying, he was competitive and the race again here.

"He passed [Sebastian] Vettel in the race and was racing hard with [Charles] Leclerc and I thought he drove very well."

It was reported that Gasly received a new car set-up for the race, but Horner has denied that this was the main contributing factor to the better result.

"Not really,” he responded when asked about the importance of the net set-up.

"I think that just his approach to the weekend has definitely helped and he has just turned up here and been competitive."