Helmut Marko Defends his Decision to Place Pierre Gasly in Toro Rosso

Published 11/22/2019, 11:14 AM EST

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Earlier this season, Red Bull parted ways with Pierre Gasly who was struggling in the RB15. So, he was moved down to Toro Rosso for the rest of the season, a decision that the team defended.

In fact, motorsport boss Helmut Marko was of the opinion that Gasly’s form would not have picked up had he not returned to Toro Rosso. During his brief Red Bull tenure, Gasly’s best finish was fourth at Silverstone.

A proud Marko admitted after the surprise podium that Gasly has got his career back on track after his demotion.

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“He’s recovered, and now we see the real Pierre,” Marko told Motorsport.com. “We always believed in him. It was positive for him, otherwise at Red Bull Racing I think he never would have recovered.”

In addition to that, Toro Rosso team boss Franz Tost confessed that it was a trying time for Pierre Gasly. However, in spite of the bitter disappointment, Pierre Gasly has put his head down and persevered. Tost theorised that since he came back, he was able to feel quite in sync with the car and the team.

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Tost also sang praises of Gasly for the way he tackled the Brazilian GP, in spite of early pressure from Alfa’s Kimi Raikkonen.

“I must say he drove a fantastic race,” Tost concluded. “Regarding the tyre management, he really looked for the car, especially in the corners under acceleration, not to overheat the tyres.”

“He always had the speed under control. When Kimi was pushing him, he just reacted on the next lap with one or two tenths faster, and Kimi recognised that he was too fast, and the gap opened to 3.4s, 3.6s, 4.0s, 5.0s, which gave him enough space to control everything.”

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Clearly, Pierre Gasly is not looking back and dwelling on the disappointing past, and only thinking about the future.

via Imago

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Written by:

Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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