Pierre Gasly: Red Bull broke promise to me

Pierre Gasly

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Gasly: Red Bull broke promise to me

He was replaced by Alex Albon midway through the season.

Martin Macdonald

Sunday 15 December 2019 16:30

After an abject first half of the campaign from Pierre Gasly, Red Bull made the decision to move him back to Toro Rosso, with Alexander Albon being promoted in the other direction, and the Frenchman has admitted to being left “shocked” and “angry” at the situation.

Gasly was easily and continuously bettered by team-mate Max Verstappen in his maiden season with Red Bull after replacing Renault-bound Daniel Ricciardo.

His confidence became so fragile that Red Bull initiated the change, which troubled the driver at the time.

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“Of course when I got the news I was really shocked and kind of angry,” Gasly confessed to Motorsport Week.

“I don’t feel it was fair because these first six months were nowhere near what we should have shown.

“You do care because you want to be in the fastest car and I’ve tried to make changes in my way, and I’ve been promised things that in the end didn’t happen. There were many things that didn’t go in the right way.

“But at the end of the day this was the situation, it was done, it was passed, I couldn’t change it.”

Verstappen reckons he has toned down the anger in 2019Read more

Gasly has gone through a rollercoaster of emotions in 2019, from losing friend Anthoine Hubert, to being demoted, to then earning his first ever podium finish in Formula 1 when he finished second to Lewis Hamilton in Brazil.

“I was with some friends and they were like ‘your year has been like a Hollywood movie, a movie you think it can’t be true, there are too many things that happened to be true’,” he added.

“And that’s a bit the way I feel it as well.

“I just went through all sorts of emotions and feelings, from frustration to anger, to one of the saddest moments of my life at Spa with Anthoine [Hubert] and then two months later to one of the happiest moments of my life with the first podium in F1.

“It’s just like such a rollercoaster but at the same time, I’ve learned a lot from these situations on a personal level but also as a driver.

“In the end it was only my second season in F1 so there’s still a lot of things you discover and experience.”