Horner convinced Gasly coming out of tough start to 2019 F1 season

Red Bull team principal believes Pierre Gasly is “coming out” of his tough start to the 2019 Formula 1 season.

Gasly has endured a difficult maiden campaign with Red Bull so far following his promotion from Toro Rosso and has scored just 13 points, while teammate Max Verstappen sits fourth in the championship on 51, having scored Honda’s first podium of the V6 hybrid era in Australia.

The Frenchman has struggled to get to grips with Red Bull’s RB15 challenger and has so far failed to match the performances of his teammate, though Horner is convinced Gasly’s fortunes are about to turn.

“I think he’s coming out of it,” Horner said. “He’s had a lot of support from the team, he’s working with a good engineer, he’s got a good engineering team around him and he knows that we know he can do it.

“So it’s just taking a bit of time, and of course he’s got a huge property next to him, and one of the hottest property in the pit lane [in Verstappen].”

Gasly had been on for his joint-best result of the season in last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix with a strong recovery drive from the Baku pitlane, before being forced into retirement with a late driveshaft failure.

“I think while he doesn’t have results on paper, I think he’s pretty happy with his weekend [in Baku],” Horner explained.

“In Q1 he was quick, Friday was quick, in the race he drove a good race. It should’ve been an easy P6 from the pit lane which is a really strong drive.

“I think even more encouraging than this is his pace, you know certainly compared to Ferrari on the same strategy, he was definitely quicker than him. So I think a lot of positives for Pierre out of this weekend.

“Despite on paper having a horrible weekend where he’s been excluded three times and a DNF, actually his pace has been strong.

“If you look at his pace versus [Ferrari driver Charles] Leclerc, in the second half of the stint he was stronger throughout.”