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Red Bull Demotes Pierre Gasly To Toro Rosso, In Comes Alex Albon

In a shocking turn of events, it’s Alex Albon who will drive for Red Bull Racing for the remainder of the 2019 season. Why is this curious?  
Alex Albon 16 photos
Photo: Red Bull Racing on Facebook
Alex Albon
For starters, both Christian Horner and Helmut Marko assured the media that Pierre Gasly is good enough for RBR despite the subpar performance of the French racing driver. And secondly, all bets were on the more experienced Daniil Kvyat from Russia instead of the 23-year-old newcomer with dual nationality.

The Thai-British fledgling entered the world of Formula 1 with Toro Rosso at the beginning of 2019, released from his Formula E contract with Nissan e.dams. The first Thai to compete in the king of motorized sports since Prince Bira back in 1954, Albon scored his first points on the third race of the season in China.

As fate would have it, Kvyat has more points up its belt so far in 2019 but Red Bull Racing decided to promote the less experienced driver. Gasly has also impressed at Toro Rosso in 2018, and in hindsight, driving for RBR is a bit more demanding in every aspect than making ends meet for the B-team from Faenza, Italy.

Looking at the bigger picture, Gasly had a lot on his shoulders in 2019 because Max Verstappen is in a league of his own. Every driver paired up with the Dutchman can either make or more probably break his career, and the Frenchman has experienced the latter of the two options firsthand. There is, however, a silver lining.

Remember when Kvyat was demoted to Toro Rosso, then tested for Ferrari in 2018 only to return to Toro Rosso this year? There is hope for Gasly going forward, a driver who has yet to hone his racecraft and mature his mental fortitude.

"Red Bull is 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," said the mothership in a statement. "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.”

In other words, the pressure is already on for Albon to walk the walk in addition to talking the talk. If he’s not up to snuff, we’d bet a tenner that Kvyat will be reinstated at RBR for the 2020 season.


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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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