Pierre Gasly: Red Bull 2019 F1 shot payback for snub after GP2
Pierre Gasly feels his Red Bull Formula 1 shot is payback for being snubbed after his GP2 title success, when he was "at the right place at the wrong time"
Gasly became Red Bull's first junior to win the GP2 championship in 2016 but had to race in Super Formula the following year as Carlos Sainz Jr and Daniil Kvyat were retained at Toro Rosso.
However, Sainz's early move to Renault and Kvyat being dropped after a poor run of results meant Red Bull drafted Gasly into its junior team for five races at the end of 2017.
Gasly earned a full-time Toro Rosso drive for 2018 and was then handed an early promotion to the senior team to replace the Renault-bound Daniel Ricciardo.
"I always believed that if you do right things, at some point good things will come to you," Gasly told Autosport when asked if it was payback for having to wait for his first F1 chance.
"I'm really happy to see it paying off now. I get great opportunities thanks to all the hard work I've done in the past.
"I've been sometimes at the right place at the wrong time, and this time I've been at the right place at the right time.
"My life has been pretty awesome in the last 13 months.
"It has not been always the case but I always felt like, 'OK, if I keep pushing as hard as I can, and keep giving the maximum out of myself, good things are going to come'."
Gasly moves to Red Bull after impressing amid the tricky scenario of Toro Rosso's poorly-developed car being powered by an engine that Honda is still making progress with.
He remains only marginally more experienced than his new team-mate Max Verstappen was when he made his own prodigious graduation to the senior team.
Sebastian Vettel had a similarly short spell with Toro Rosso before his Red Bull move.
Gasly said: "The only people I look at are the ones that succeeded.
"I look at Seb. Seb did the same thing as me, one and a half year in Toro Rosso, jumped to Red Bull, had a successful time straightaway.
"Max did the same, had a successful time straightaway.
"So, you know, it's all up to me. I don't want to look at people that failed.
"Of course you can look at what went wrong and learn also from them, but I'm inspired with the people that succeed.
"Those are the ones I take as examples. It's possible, people have done it before."
Share Or Save This Story
Why Sainz only got a five-second penalty for Hungarian GP clash with Piastri
Alonso delivers first verdict on Aston Martin F1 car upgrades
Why Toto Wolff may need to try some distraction tactics
Alpine explains Gasly's crash that red-flagged FP2
Why Gasly's Monaco GP penalty saga risks a regulatory labyrinth with no way out for F1
Why Alpine was annoyed with its China double-points finish, even after a torrid 2025
Verstappen on latest Red Bull woes: "Desperate? I'm already past that stage"
"You're not allowed to make a difference" – Verstappen says the fastest F1 drivers are penalised
The Red Bull seat nobody is talking about – and why that's the biggest compliment of all
What McLaren thought of Piastri's explosive F1 Hungarian GP radio outburst
How Norris shrugged off his first-lap error to deliver on McLaren's Hungarian GP pace
BTCC Thruxton: Ingram wins race three despite penalty to cut into Sutton’s lead
New Honda F1 engine to debut in Aston Martin filming day ahead of Dutch GP
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments