What Gasly can learn from his superb response to demotion

Is Pierre Gasly the hard-charger who has excelled during the second half of the Formula 1 season with Toro Rosso, or the struggler who failed to perform for Red Bull's A-team in the first half?

The answer is both, and neither. F1 is a complicated business and evaluating performance is a tricky task given the multitude of contributing factors. What is clear is that Gasly is extremely at home in the Toro Rosso environment, with the style demanded by the car, and has responded to a potentially career-breaking relegation brilliantly.

To put some numbers on it, he's scored points in five of his eight starts back at Toro Rosso and outperformed team-mate Daniil Kvyat both in qualifying and on race performances. While Kvyat has endured some misfortune, notably losing a strong result at Monza in September, there's no doubt who the stronger Toro Rosso driver has been over the second half of the season.

While the redemptive second place at Interlagos was the result of luck, Gasly earned it by winning 'his' race. It's a cliche to refer to 'Class B' as ultra-competitive, but that reached absurd proportions at Interlagos, where the six serious midfield teams were covered by 0.33 seconds in qualifying - and the fastest five of those by just 0.198s. Whoever prevailed in this congested part of the field would automatically have excelled, and it was Gasly who was fastest in qualifying and led the 'Class B' race throughout.

In a situation that would destroy most, Gasly has thrived. And all this despite seemingly not accepting, at least in public, the reasons for his struggles and demotion

So how do you explain the difference? To revisit his problems in the first half of the year, Gasly was first and foremost not quick enough. On average, he was just over half a second off his team-mate Max Verstappen and even against one of the toughest benchmarks in F1, that's not good enough. In races, he too often got caught up among the midfielders and simply didn't deliver the results.

In pre-season testing, he crashed heavily twice. Once is unfortunate, twice is misadventure - especially when the team is short of parts ahead of the season.

He was also all over the place in terms of set-up, too often overdriving on corner entry and inducing understeer, and fiddling endlessly with parameters such as his seat in the search for a magically perfect car he never got near to finding.

Red Bull didn't want to bust him back to Toro Rosso, but as Gasly was mentally 'gone' it felt it had no choice. But from a situation that would destroy most - look at how Kvyat responded to being dropped by Red Bull having performed better than his current team-mate - Gasly has thrived. And all this despite seemingly not accepting, at least in public, the reasons for his struggles and demotion.

After his outstanding qualifying performance, it made sense to ask Gasly why he's performing so well in the second half of the year.

"There are many things together, but clearly the way we are working," he said. "We managed to extract everything from the car, which wasn't the case at the beginning of the year - not consistently. Every weekend I feel we are closer to maximising the car we have. The engineers, every weekend, manage to give me all the tools I need to be competitive and drive the way I want, to be fast. A whole lot of details make the difference."

There's a lot in there. Firstly, the car does seem to work better with Gasly's aggressive style. The Toro Rosso is a less lairy car than it was last year, particularly in the first half of the season when his late-braking, throw it in and control the rear style worked well. But it still responds well to that kind of approach. So, unlike the Red Bull, which Gasly seemed to push too hard in, the Toro Rosso responds to him.

Secondly, he clearly thinks the Red Bull engineers weren't on the same wavelength and the car was holding him back. This position would be a source of frustration to the team, which worked hard to accommodate him and adapt to his requirements. But Gasly's chaotic set-up direction seemed to be chasing something that wasn't there.

The logical follow up question is whether he feels Red Bull failed to give him the car he needed to deliver. Gasly's response focused on extracting car performance rather than his own pace.

"It wasn't the biggest issue or the biggest limiting factor of the performance," he said. "But clearly at the beginning of the year we were not extracting, for some reasons, the potential of the car, which we do now and you can see it with the results and it is quite clear."

What must not be underestimated is how difficult it can be to adapt to one of F1's behemoths. Some take to it well, Leclerc and Verstappen for example, but even for those two stellar performers there was a steep learning curve. The array of set-up options and the level of fine tuning required can be mind-boggling.

Differential settings are just one example, with myriad options for different corner types and phases - a big team offers vastly more options than a midfield operation. Set-up is far more complicated than just cranking a bit of front wing in, doubly so at a big team.

Learning how to use those tools and having the right mindset to achieve the right set-up compromise across a lap and for race stints is phenomenally difficult. As Valtteri Bottas has shown up against Hamilton, you have to be hewn from granite to work through those processes while trying to match up to the best in the world without suffering as he did in 2018 before his admirable recovery this year.

Gasly might be destined to be one of those very good but not great drivers, but must strive to become more if he is to turn the undoubted speed into something reliably repeatable

What is unquestionable is that Gasly was not able to get the performance out of the RB15 that Verstappen did. Yet there were flashes. In Baku, for example, he flew in qualifying even though he was guaranteed a pitlane start. So when the pressure was off - and there was nothing to lose, nothing to gain - suddenly that underlying speed came through. That's something that didn't escape Red Bull's notice, which is why more than pragmatism and a driver shortage played a part in him being kept on.

Gasly's hopes of a return to the big brother Red Bull team one day are not entirely forlorn, although Helmut Marko and Christian Horner will require quite some convincing that returning to that well is desirable. But the organisation has backed Gasly through tough times before and if he continues to show well he will at least ensure he is in the conversation.

But he still has a long way to go to prove he can deliver at a consistently high level and pride pace week in, week out to be at home with the best. Doing it in the midfield, where car performance can be erratic and the yardstick in the other car is not Lewis Hamilton or Verstappen, is a subtly different kind of challenge that is demanding, but not quite as uniquely testing as being at the sharp end constantly.

Gasly might now be destined to be one of those very good but not great drivers who has a career as an effective jobbing driver, but must strive to become more and leave no stone unturned if he is to turn the undoubted speed into something reliably repeatable. He took time to reach his best in GP2 and endured a lengthy win drought after stepping up from Formula Renault to 3.5, so maybe he's not the fastest learner? Then again, he adapted well to Super Formula and it was possibly only a Suzuka typhoon that denied him the title.

The Brazilian GP, and the previous seven races, showed that Gasly has ability. He is likely a driver who needs things to be right for him to thrive and isn't the force of nature that the few gold standard drivers become. But at 23, and in only his second full F1 season, he's spectacular to watch, capable of being very fast and clearly could yet evolve into a driver who can do a job in a top team. What the last three months have proved beyond doubt is that he is at least a robust character whose confidence wasn't damaged by the trauma of the first half of the year, even if there must be scars somewhere.

Brazil showed the best of Gasly as the first half of the season showed the worst. It will be the soft bit between his ears, both consciously and unconsciously, that dictates where in between those two extremes he settles in the long-term.