Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says Pierre Gasly’s strong British Grand Prix weekend was down to his approach, not changes in his car’s set-up.
Gasly, who has lagged behind Max Verstappen for much of the season, qualified and raced more strongly at Silverstone than he has in most races so far this season.“Pierre has done a very good job all weekend,” said Horner. “Turning the page from Austria, that was a really tough weekend for him. I think coming here, just focusing on what he’s doing, not worrying about what his team mate’s doing and just getting back to basics, he’s been like a different driver all weekend.
“From the first session he’s been competitive. He’s built on that in [second practice], in all three elements of qualifying he was competitive. And the race again here he passed Vettel early in the race, he was racing hard with Leclerc. I thought he drove very well.”
Before the race some reports claimed Gasly would be required to use Verstappen’s set-up at Silverstone. However Horner stressed there was “nothing essentially different” in how the team set up his car this weekend.
“I think that just his approach to the weekend has definitely helped. He’s just turned up here and been competitive.”
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Mark
17th July 2019, 12:21
Yes Gasly performance is better than RICciardo, now that GAS has the same car, instead of VER taking the good front wing from GAS’ car because VER breaks his, AND the team is better around GAS after the debacle in Austria. Today RBR takes seriously GAS.
And the honda engine is already good, no need to wait for Spa to have a decent engine, contrary to what people at Honda say.
nase
17th July 2019, 14:53
No one? Okay, I’ll say it:
What?
Bart
17th July 2019, 20:15
When Vettel hit Verstappen Max lost power steering, his seat came loose so he was sliding in the cockpit, and he had loss of downforce due to floor and barge board damage. Yet he was still lapping faster than Gasly.
I don’t think Max would have been faster with that damage if Daniel had been in the other Red Bull.
Jere (@jerejj)
17th July 2019, 13:05
Perhaps a bit of all. The approach, the set-up, as well as, engine mode 11 contributing to that surge of pace, which hopefully, is going to stay there throughout the remainder of the season.
anon
17th July 2019, 14:30
@jerejj, we will have to wait and see though, because Red Bull did also implement a similar strategy in Austria as well – it is being reported he was using Verstappen’s set up in that race as well, and the way that the team approached that race was similar to the British GP, but that race weekend worked rather less well.
Nulla Pax (@nullapax)
17th July 2019, 15:44
Gasly was driving like a novice. Underperformed all season. Got lapped by his team mate.
A joke performance by anyone’s standards.
Then they say they will let him know what Max’s set up is and suddenly he is up in the running!
What kind of a TEAM is this?
A lot of people have accused Red Bull of worshipping Max and to be honest after this latest development I am pretty much on board with that.
I can now understand a lot better why Ricciardo would want to leave to drive an inferior car.
Gasly – my advice – get away from these bum wipes ASAP.
erikje
17th July 2019, 18:42
Nobody said that, only you.
Gad used his own setup to no avail. They gave him a lot of chances but he failed. Then they pushed him to take Max’s setup as baseline. That seems to work better for him. Do not make things up. Rbr is very lenient with Gad. Probably because there is not much choice
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
17th July 2019, 15:57
he still had a bad weekend, if you look at other team mate pairings this weekend’s ver/gas is still very lopsided.
Gasly did better because most of the lap is full throttle.
jmlabareda
17th July 2019, 16:15
Gasly had a good weekend primarily due to a longer laptime than in Austria, and the fact that Vettel wrecked his team mate and destroyed his own race.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
17th July 2019, 21:35
If accepting Max’s set-up as a baseline and changing approach to the weekend helps Pierre make better use of his Red Bull, I’m all for it. Obviously this is not the complete transformation, but after the start he’s had, asking for all of it to happen in the same race weekend would be unreasonable. However, now this better baseline is established, I hope Pierre makes good use of it to make 2019 end better than it started.
(I’m not convinced Red Bull and he are a good fit for the long-term, but he might as well get as good a performance from the car as possible until a better fit becomes available).
Edvaldo
17th July 2019, 21:55
He was ok. He even made a move on Vettel as on the other race he couldn’t do the same on Norris.
But it’s just one race. Let’s see if it was an one off or a real thing.