Gasly improvement 'vital' to Red Bull success

Christian Horner insists that Pierre Gasly must start improving his performances as his contribution will be “vital” to Red Bull bridging the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari.

The Frenchman has struggled in the first half of the season since moving from Toro Rosso to Red Bull, constantly being outperformed by Max Verstappen despite the pair having the same car, while Carlos Sainz of McLaren is only five points behind him in the drivers’ rankings.

Gasly finished the Hungarian Grand Prix in sixth, behind Sainz again, and Horner has lamented another missed opportunity for more points.

“It’s been been a frustrating weekend for Pierre,” the Red Bull team principal said.

“The start wasn’t great, the first lap wasn’t great and we shouldn’t be racing Saubers and McLarens.

“We need him to be racing Ferraris and Mercedes. Everything we can do to try and help them achieve that is what we’ll do.

"It is vital for us, if we're to stand any chance of catching Ferrari, that we have him finishing further ahead."

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Horner’s main issue is that Gasly was never even around the front-runners to try and make an impact on the race.

“The problem is he’s not in the mix at all,” the Brit added.

“So it’s not like if Lewis said he was going to come out you know behind him or anything like that.

“But today both Mercedes and Red Bull had ‘one-legged’ races with the team-mates out of contention.”

Red Bull are currently third in the constructors' championship.

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