Gasly “ready” for Red Bull return after first F1 win

Pierre Gasly feels he is “ready” to return to Red Bull if the team opted to recall him from its sister AlphaTauri squad following his maiden Formula 1 victory at the Italian Grand Prix.

Gasly claimed a shock first win of his F1 career at Monza after taking advantage of a red flag period and a costly penalty for erstwhile race leader Lewis Hamilton.

Having resisted late pressure from McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, Gasly became the first French F1 winner since Oliver Panis in 1996 and score AlphaTauri’s second victory in the sport - its first since Sebastian Vettel took his maiden win in 2008 at the same circuit.

The Frenchman had been demoted from Red Bull 12 races into his promotion from the then Toro Rosso outfit just 13 months prior to his victory at Monza, before enjoying a stellar turnaround in form since returning to Red Bull’s sister team.

His victory coincides with a difficult start to Alex Albon’s first full campaign at Red Bull in a season that is mirroring the struggles Gasly suffered before being dropped.

"I think I'm ready, but it's not up to me to make that call," Gasly said.

"The only thing I've done since they moved me back to Toro Rosso has been just to focus on myself and just show what I can do.

"When I get the right tools in my hand I'm really happy that the performance we've shown. I'm not only talking about Brazil but I think generally, we've been pretty strong most of the time.

"We've had some really strong qualifyings, really strong races since. We'll see what happens."

SEE ALSO: How resilient Pierre Gasly is forging his path to F1 redemption.

Red Bull bosses Christian Horner and Helmut Marko have stressed they are happy with the team’s current driver line-up and have repeatedly backed Albon, but speculation of a possible swap refuses to go away.

AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost said after the victory that he hoped Gasly would remain at Faenza for the 2021 season.

“If we lose him [to Red Bull], that means the team did a good job, because otherwise they wouldn’t take him,” Tost told Sky Sports F1.

“But currently, I’m quite optimistic that he will stay with us.”