Rule One: The Doctor lies.
I’m not exactly a Doctor Who fan, but I am aware of that as a reference. And it also applies in Formula 1…at least when referring to Dr Helmut Marko.
Less than two weeks ago, Dr Marko ruled out replacing Pierre Gasly mid-season, stating that he would be remaining with the Red Bull team for the rest of 2019. But that is exactly what has happened today. Gasly will be demoted back to Toro Rosso to partner Daniil Kvyat – a man very familiar with that feeling – and replaced by Alexander Albon at Red Bull from the Belgian Grand Prix.
That is a very early promotion for Albon. He is just 12 races into his Formula 1 career and suddenly faces the daunting prospect of switching teams mid-season into a race-winning car and being compared with an in-form Max Verstappen on the other side of the garage. This is a young man who was dropped entirely from the Red Bull programme in 2012 and who only really got his chance this year thanks to Red Bull’s pool of junior prospect drying up.
There is logic behind the decision, however. Gasly has badly underperformed, obviously, and Kvyat is a known quantity to Red Bull management, so why not give the new guy a shot? Albon has been performing well in his debut season and, as the official statement points out, “Red Bull are in the unique position of having four talented Formula 1 drivers under contract who can be rotated between Aston Martin Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso. The team will use the next nine races to evaluate Alex’s performance in order to make an informed decision as to who will drive alongside Max in 2020.”
Red Bull have little to lose. If Albon doesn’t cut it then – being brutally honest – he’s unlikely to be that true star driver. Sink or swim situations are where the ‘generational’ talents thrive – think Verstappen winning his first race for Red Bull or Lewis Hamilton’s rookie season, pitted against the reigning double world champion Fernando Alonso. And if he does well then they have pulled off a master stroke and stand a far better chance of beating Ferrari to second in the Constructors’ Championship this year. That is the main motivator behind this change – it was evident in Christian Horner’s comments after the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Should we feel sorry for Gasly?
He is by all accounts a lovely guy and he was probably unlucky to be thrust into the big team so early, after Daniel Ricciardo‘s shock move to Renault. But Formula 1 is cut-throat; Red Bull Racing particularly so. Perhaps he will recuperate at Toro Rosso and come back stronger – he certainly showed promise last year and, between Kvyat and Robert Kubica, this has already been a year for comebacks. Or he may take it the way Kvyat took his demotion in 2016 and mentally struggle to deal with the setback. Time will tell; I hope it’s the former.
Spare a thought for Kvyat, too, as he can now add ‘passed up for the job’ to his long list of grievances through his Red Bull rollercoaster.
‘Silly season’ has now officially started. Over to you, Mercedes…
