Gasly makes Red Bull 'return on investment' claim

Pierre Gasly has claimed Red Bull has received a "return on its investment" for his career after backing him as a junior racer.

Frenchman Gasly has spent the entirety of his F1 career racing for the two Red Bull-owned teams, making his debut for Toro Rosso before a promotion came to the main outfit.

That only lasted half a season before dropping back to the sister team, which then became AlphaTauri in 2020.

But the partnership has now ended with Gasly making the switch to partner Esteban Ocon at Alpine.

Reflecting on his nature as a team player, speaking in an end-of-season interview with GPFans, Gasly said: “When I came to F1 [and] when I came back from Red Bull, I played the best role I could as a Red Bull ambassador.

"It was just common sense to say, this is closed for the future. Give me the opportunity to move forward with my career, and then we don't know what the future will be. It's not like we are ending on bad terms.

“The relationship is probably better than ever, and I'm grateful that they understood because I had a contract.

“They could've just said, ‘Okay, listen, you are contracted. Unfortunately, you're going to stay here’, and then I don't care.

“But it wasn't like that either. He [Franz Tost, team principal] understood that this was important personally for me and it was a win-win deal for everyone.

“They invested in my career, they got their return on investments, and I'm happy, Red Bull's happy, Alpine is happy. We managed to find a good deal for everyone.”