The Red Bull F1 junior in exile

After Stoffel Vandoorne, now Pierre Gasly. Red Bull's French protege has this year become the second successive GP2 champion to be sent to Japan for a season to race in the country's hugely competitive Super Formula series while he awaits an opening in Formula 1.

Just as Vandoorne did in 2016 at the behest of McLaren, which wasn't quite sure that it wanted to pension off Jenson Button yet, Gasly is experiencing a taste of a very different racing culture while he queues up behind the Red Bull/Toro Rosso quartet of Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat.

In a way, Super Formula has come full circle since its halcyon era - as Japanese Formula 3000 - in the 1990s when Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Eddie Irvine and Ralf Schumacher, among others, used it as the final staging post before F1. It spent a period in the doldrums a few years back, hence it's only now beginning to regain international awareness.

"I had heard about it before when Loic Duval [who won the title in 2009, when it was called Formula Nippon] was in the series, so in France of course they talked about it and his success," reflects Gasly.

"But last year I followed the championship more with Stoffel - all the time I saw him at the track also as reserve driver [in F1, with Vandoorne fulfilling duties for McLaren and Gasly for Red Bull/Toro Rosso], so we got to spend quite a lot of time together and he explained to me what it was like in Japan, so I was a lot more aware about it."

Whatever the result of the GP2 title battle between Gasly and Prema Racing team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi in 2016, it was evident that Red Bull would be looking to move its charge on to a new programme: Super Formula fitted the bill perfectly.

Red Bull driver programme boss Helmut Marko already had a connection with Honda R&D chief Yoshiharu Yamamoto, meaning that it always looked more likely that the Rouen racer would end up with this manufacturer rather than Toyota (like IndyCar, Super Formula uses spec Dallara chassis with two rival engine suppliers).

"I wasn't so much involved in the discussions with the teams," admits Gasly, "but Mr Yamamoto was in Abu Dhabi [where Gasly clinched the GP2 title] and saw my races, and I know they had discussions with Helmut to find a team for me for Super Formula."

With Vandoorne's old team Dandelion Racing signing up Takuya Izawa to partner the Belgian's 2016 team-mate Tomoki Nojiri, the tipsters predicted that Gasly would end up at Nakajima Racing, until rumours began to surface that Team Mugen could expand to run a second car alongside its '13 champion Naoki Yamamoto (no relation to the Honda boss). Finally the deal with Mugen was confirmed.

He had missed the 2016 post-season Suzuka test, which took place during the week before the GP2 finale, so it wasn't until Gasly took to the track in the very limited pre-season testing that he discovered... driving heaven.

"Suzuka in testing was unbelievable," he smiles. "The first sector with that car was heaven. I was, like, having shocks that the car had this potential. Basically it felt like a big Formula Renault 3.5 [Gasly finished runner-up in that series in 2014], with a lot of downforce.

"In terms of power it's less than in GP2 and more than 3.5, and in terms of downforce it's more than both. As an overall package it's really good - the Yokohama tyres give pretty good grip most of the time, and have much less degradation than in GP2, so that's also a big change."

Put it to Gasly that this can only suit him - he is renowned as a driver who leans heavily on his rubber, just as was Sainz in his junior days - and he chuckles: "Yeah, it's true that naturally I'm quite hard on the tyres! That's why the first season in GP2 [with DAMS in 2015] was difficult for me in terms of tyre management.

"But this year it's kind of a relief, because I can really push, especially in pre-season testing because it was really good conditions. The overall grip was really high, and that's something that suits me. As a driver, what do you want to do? I know in my case what I love is to push on entry speed like crazy, and carry a lot of speed through the corners."

Such a chassis/engine/rubber combination means that the Super Formula Dallara SF14 shows up well compared to an F1 car.

"Stoffel told me that at Suzuka last year they compared his lap with the McLaren-Honda," says Gasly, "and in the first sector he was quicker with the Super Formula than the McLaren was.

"Compared to this year's F1 cars the level of downforce is lower [in Super Formula], but from my feeling it's really close to last year's car - I would not be surprised if it had the same load on the car. It's quite light as well - less than 600 kilos - which of course gives more potential."

Gasly might have loved the car in testing, but over the two race weekends to date the series' five star rookies - also including Felix Rosenqvist, Jann Mardenborough, Nick Cassidy and reigning Japanese Formula 3 champion Kenta Yamashita - have found that puzzling out the Yokohama tyres when it counts in qualifying, while simultaneously finding a clear track, is a tricky art.

Gasly qualified best (eighth) and finished top (10th) of the new boys at the Suzuka opener, then last time out at the Okayama double-header he binned it just 12 laps into the two hours of Friday free practice, meaning he was going into qualifying on a circuit he barely knew with a severe handicap.

A first-lap collision left him a lap down in race one after a pitstop for a new front wing, before he bounced back to qualify fifth for race two. After being shouldered onto the grass away from the start, he finished seventh to net his first point - satisfying, but far from the form those who underestimate Japanese racing's top level would have predicted.

It's not just the competition; it's the different way of doing things and the language barrier. Quiz him on the level of professionalism in Super Formula, and this very articulate 21-year-old pauses before a very eloquent explanation of his early impressions of the Japanese way.

"I would say it's quite different from Europe in the way they work," says Gasly. "Even if it's a series in Japan, you can compare it with IndyCar - I think it's pretty fair to say that Super Formula in Asia is the main series like Indy in the States.

"What I find really difficult at the moment is the communication as a European, because basically my engineer is the only one who speaks English at the team. What's really difficult is that you cannot communicate with all of them.

"When everything goes well I don't find it a big problem, but when you start to struggle and there are things to be changed, that's a difficult point, because I cannot say what I need and what I would like to change.

"He's the only guy who can understand and his English is good, but not like an English person. And when he translates to the team he speaks in Japanese so I don't know what he's saying, and I don't know if he told them exactly the things I said in the way I said it.

"You can see that they are professional in the way they work, but many things are different in the communication with the driver - I make reports after each test and each race, and I've never got any reports from the team, whereas in GP2 I remember you have a preview before the weekend, big preparation, and after the race weekend you got... especially with Prema you got 50 pages about each session, the car and everything!

"Here, basically you give your feedback, but it's really difficult to get something back from the team. It's something that Stoffel also told me he experienced last year.

"What I find different compared to Prema is that last year we had a really good baseline, and each track we were going to we knew if it was good it was P1/P2, and if it was bad it was P4/P5. And this year, you need to ask about everything. They don't know if it's going to be good, if this set-up's going to work.

"In terms of organisation, you always have a run plan in GP2, 3.5 or F1. You know that you're going to test this in the second run, this in the third run, and it's really clear all the items you want to try.

"Before this weekend [at Okayama] I was like, 'Yeah OK, so what's the plan for this weekend? What do you want to try?' And it's, 'Yeah, we're going to do it with the feelings. After the first run we're going to see and we're going to adapt the car at that time.' It's a bit old-school sometimes. It's quite a change from what I used to have."

Unlike Mardenborough and Cassidy, who share a flat in Tokyo and also have full programmes in Japan's Super GT series, Gasly can't immerse himself in Japan because of his F1 duties. That obviously also slows down the adaptation to a very different world: "I usually try to come on the Monday so I have three days to get used to the time difference."

Bearing this in mind, you'd hope that Red Bull is allowing Gasly a free rein without the company's usual pressure on its youngsters to deliver results.

"Of course it's never like this with Red Bull!" he laughs. "You know Helmut...

"You need to perform, but it's different. Last year they really wanted me to win GP2, see that I was ready for F1, and I managed to do it, so of course my position changed a bit inside Red Bull, because now it's not a matter of 'am I ready for F1?'

"I need to get the best out of my season, but I know it's tough. When you come here everything is different: the championship, the tracks, hardly any testing, the teams are really different [in the way they work], and the Toyota engine is a bit better than Honda. Which makes it difficult."

All Gasly can do is keep going on an upward trajectory. Super Formula is red-hot competition, and it's interesting that after two race weekends the five super-rookies are all clustered closely - and low down - the championship table, from Cassidy (three points) to Gasly (one).

It's no disgrace not to win the title (Vandoorne was fourth last year, and wasn't even the top rookie - that was the highly underrated Yuhi Sekiguchi), as long as Gasly shows momentum, and keeps impressing with his work for the Red Bull and Toro Rosso F1 teams.

But don't assume that because the pressure (relatively) is off, and he's revelling in just driving a jewel of a car, that he won't be gunning for wins from the next round at Fuji on July 9.

"In terms of driving it gives a lot of pleasure," he says, "but it's always better when you're competitive - you always enjoy it even more then."