In the silly season, you always get shocks and stories with lots of events never coming to pass. Just ask Eddie Jordan seeing how he is determined that Lewis Hamilton is off to Ferrari one day. However, last we heard at Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, Pierre Gasly’s place in the senior team was not at risk but today all that has changed following the switch that has seen Alexander Albon head to Aston Red Bull Racing and Pierre Gasly across (not down!) to Toro Rosso.

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing announced on Monday that Pierre Gasly would be returning to Toro Rosso due to the fact that Alexander Albon is being brought up from Toro Rosso to be teammate to Max Verstappen.

The statement read:

“Alexander Albon is being promoted to the Team to drive alongside Max, while Pierre will return to the Red Bull sister team, Scuderia Toro Rosso.

“Red Bull are in the unique position of having four talented Formula One drivers under contract who can be rotated between the team 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.

“Everyone at the team looks forward to welcoming Alex and supporting him during the next phase of his F1 career.”

So, why may this have happened?

First of all, one of the main points going against the Frenchman was most likely his performance in qualifying compared to his high flying teammate Max Verstappen.

Max Verstappen’s qualifying results: 4th, 5th, 5th, 4th, 4th, 3rd, 11th, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 2nd, 1st

In comparison to…

Pierre Gasly’s qualifying results: 17th, 13th, 6th, 15th, 6th, 5th, 5th, 9th, 9th, 5th, 4th, 6th

Over one lap you have to show composure and consistency and sadly for Pierre Gasly he has been consistently poor in qualifying.

Of course, everyone can have struggles in qualifying but once again the statistics for Gasly on race day do him no favours either:

Max Verstappen’s race results: 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 4th, 1st, 5th, 1st, 2nd

Pierre Gasly’s race results: 11th, 8th, 6th, RET, 6th, 5th, 8th, 10th, 7th, 4th, 14th, 6^th.

https://www.motorlat.com/notas/f1/12481/midseason-break-giving-marks-to-the-drivers

We should not be surprised seeing how Daniil Kvyat scored a podium for Red Bull Racing when he was ‘at the top’ and still they sent him to Toro Rosso So, in comparison, maybe Gasly has done well to last as long as he has done!

Alexander Albon is a young talented driver enjoying a successful debut season with points already but hopefully this is not a leap too soon and the proud Brit racing under the flag of Thailand will have time to grow into his role as Max Verstappen’s teammate but…when it comes to Red Bull Racing…who knows how long any driver has – unless you are Max Verstappen.