Pierre Gasly says that the feeling he gets with Toro Rosso is not the same he did with Red Bull Racing F1 car which is one of the reasons for a better run in the former.
Poised to shine in a front-running car, Gasly left much to be desired during his stay at Red Bull, which was cut short after he failed to compete with the rest of the Top 6 consistently – whether of his own doing or circumstances in the weekend.
He entered Red Bull on a high, leaving Toro Rosso after some stellar results including a fourth in Bahrain, but failed to replicate such feats while wearing the dark blue, yellow, and red overalls against a formidable teammate, Max Verstappen.
His performances in both qualifying and races weren’t upto the mark, especially in the races where he struggled to overtake and often fought with much slower cars, unable to find his way to the front, where his car deserved to be.
Ultimately, Red Bull decided to give Alexander Albon a go, in order to make it a three-way shoot-out in 2020 which includes Daniil Kvyat. The Thai racer has done well in the Red Bull so far, while Gasly has shined again as well as he’s returned to his former midfield glory.
Many have speculated as to why Gasly seemed to have lost pace in the Red Bull but looking back at the RB15 and the current Toro Rosso he is driving, he reckons the major debacle was the feeling he got in the latter which more to his liking.
“I think I managed to get the car more or less the way I want with Toro Rosso,” said Gasly to the media. “It’s not a thing at Red Bull where of course we are talking about to not really do what I wanted, but I don’t think this was the main reason why we struggled there.
“It’s just at Toro Rosso I manage to put the car in the window I want, to drive the way I needed and what feels natural to me. Coming to a new car it’s a bit more difficult to get that consistency. I think we made a step forward with Toro Rosso now more.
“But it’s more about the work I do with my engineer and what they provide me, giving me everything I need in the car to perform. It like many things that we had to tackle with Red Bull, but I think in the Toro Rosso, it’s good.
“I still feel a bit too much understeer compared to what I would like, and this is something we try with set-up. I tend to counter, and already in Russia, we make a good step compared to usual but in Red Bull we had a bit of shift of balance which got better with all of the development going into correct this shift.”
As his future gets talked about, the performances of Albon, especially in the races is noteworthy and with Verstappen having a dip in the same period, while when Gasly was there, the Dutchman was a hard driver to beat, has made things complicated.
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The story was written by Duncan Leahy and edited by Darshan Chokhani