Christian Horner Believes Pierre Gasly Needs a Mental Reset

Pierre Gasly has not been having a great season with the Aston Martin Red Bull team. However, the Austrian team threw their full support behind the Frenchman inspite of all this. However, according to team boss, Christian Horner, Gasly is going slower the harder he tries and needs a mental reset.

The 23-year old Pierre Gasly impressed when he drove for sister team, Scuderia Toro Rosso. This earned him a promotion to the former Formula One world champions in place of a departing Daniel Ricciardo. Unfortunately, he has been off the pace in comparison to his 21-year-old team mate Max Verstappen.

The Dutchman won the last race in Austria in spite dropping seven places at the start. Pierre Gasly on the other hand was seventh and ended up getting lapped by his own teammate.

“That was a very tough moment for him,” Horner admitted to the press ahead of the British Grand Prix weekend.

“You could see he was quite emotional at the end of it because he’s got himself into a situation where the harder he’s trying, the slower he goes.

“We know what he’s capable of as a driver, which is a long way beyond what we’ve seen so far.”

So far, Pierre Gasly’s best result has been a fifth place during the Monaco Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen has been on the podium three times and finished fourth on a further five occasions. According to Horner, Gasly simply needs to turn the page and gain some confidence.

“Obviously there’s an awful lot of scrutiny on him at the moment, an awful lot of speculation about how long his future will be,” he said. “But as a team he has our full support, we’re doing our best to work with him.”

“(He should) not focus too much on the data and try to be perfect, and just drive the car and ignore his team mate. That’s my advice to him.”

“Turn your phone off, don’t look at any of the social media and just drive the car.”

“Sport can change so quickly where confidence is such a big factor.”

“I think if he just starts to find a bit of confidence, starts to go his way, you’ll see a switch in him that will ramp up quite quickly because he is very much a confidence driver.”