Pierre Gasly may be in line for a second shot at Red Bull in the future, according to Helmut Marko.
Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko, hasn’t ruled out the idea of the team bringing Pierre Gasly back into the senior team, leaving Sergio Perez without a seat.
Gasly joined the squad in 2019, but he struggled to keep up with colleague Max Verstappen’s speed.
Gasly competed in 12 races with Max Verstappen for Red Bull in 2019, he was out-qualified 11 times, failing to make the podium five times as the Dutchman won two races.
Before the season ended, he was demoted to the Toro Rosso squad, and Alex Albon took his spot at the main team.
Sergio Perez was then signed from Racing Point after winning the Sakhir Grand Prix in 2020, and in his first year, he claimed five podiums and a race win while superbly holding off Sir Lewis Hamilton in Turkey and Abu Dhabi to assist Verstappen win the championship.
Meanwhile, Gasly has progressed through the ranks at AlphaTauri, rising to the position of team leader. He also won his first Formula 1 race at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix.
His contract with the junior squad expires in 2023, and he has said he will either make the transfer to Red Bull, or not. Although it is impossible to imagine the Frenchman remaining in the youth team beyond next season, Dr Marko is adamant about keeping the 26-year-old.
“If this contract expires and we can’t offer him any chance of promotion,” Marko said in an interview. “We will most likely lose him.”
“We don’t want that.”
Gerhard Berger recently stated that Gasly is “doing excellent and is a terrific driver,” implying that he is deserving of a chance at redemption in the main field, and his compatriot discloses that all he has to do now is analyze him and Perez.
“Gerhard is right [but] we currently have a contract with Checo and we have to compare the performance of these two drivers,” Marko explained.
“With Checo we still have until the middle of the year.”
Dr Marko refused to give Perez any assurances that his seat is safe prior to the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, in which Perez won the pole but lost the race following an untimely Virtual Safety Car.
Perez was comfortably leading the race in Jeddah before the deployment of the important Virtual Safety Car, having secured his first F1 pole after 218 previous tries, and the 78-year-old expressed his satisfaction with his improvement since joining last year.
“The car suits him better, he feels more comfortable and he knows the team,” he affirmed. “We are very happy that this development has taken place.”
On the other hand, Gasly was forced to retire from the Bahrain Grand Prix, along with the Red Bull duo, due to a reliability issue, before finishing seventh in Jeddah while suffering from significant abdominal pain.
