Gasly tells his Red Bull story: "That's the truth"

Out of place

In a column for The Players Tribune, Gasly said he felt out of place at Red Bull. According to the Frenchman, he was not supported and not listened to. "From the moment I made my first mistake in a car, I felt like people there slowly began to turn on me," he explained. "I’d had a crash in winter testing, and from that moment on the season never really got going."

An eleventh place finish in Australia and an eighth place in Bahrain subsequently did Gasly no favours either. "Then I had a tough first two races with Red Bull and the media just ate me up. Anything I said in the press was twisted into an excuse for my form, and nobody really stuck up for me."

Not the same treatment

According to Gasly, he did everything he could to try to improve and learn every week. "I was working my ass off every day, trying to get results for the team, but I was not being given all the tools I needed to succeed. I would try to offer solutions, but my voice wasn’t heard, or it would take weeks to see changes." Moreover, Gasly felt he was not getting the same treatment at the team. "That's something I just can't accept."

Call for support

In the last Grand Prix before the summer break, in Hungary, Gasly finished sixth. "Before I went on holiday I called Christian Horner just to ask him what I could be doing more of on race weekends to improve, and to see if he could take a closer look at my side of the garage to see what could be done. Christian said he would do all he could. And that was that. I wanted to improve. I wanted it to work."

While Gasly was on holiday in Spain, he received a call from Helmut Marko. "He said: 'We are going to send you back to Toro Rosso in a switch with Alex Albon. It doesn't mean this is the end of the story with us, but with all the noise in the media we just feel this is the best.' That's just how it goes. That's F1."