Pierre Gasly celebrates his 25th birthday: A year to showcase F1 leadership skills

Pierre Gasly turns 25 today [Sunday]. The Frenchman became a surprise Grand Prix winner over the last 12 months and will look to further impress those in F1 as he makes the lead AlphaTauri seat his own in 2021. 

Maturing well

Gasly’s story has been well documented over the last couple of seasons. He experienced a quick rise to the Red Bull seat after Daniel Ricciardo’s departure but dropped backwards at equal speed. He then experienced the tragic loss of a great friend and fellow countryman Anthoine Hubert.

But his bounce back in the AlphaTauri during the 2020 season was staggering. It culminated in a victory at Monza, his second career podium.

It was perhaps the easy option to go hiding when he first dropped back to AlphaTauri. But Gasly wanted to prove Helmut Marko wrong. Even though he was in the supposedly slower AlphaTauri, Gasly only finished 30 points down on Albon. 43 points ahead of teammate Daniil Kvyat. Albon and Gasly often exchanged places on the track. When in attack mode, Gasly remained level headed. 

 

 

 

 

 

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2021

Gasly gets a new teammate this year in the form of Yuki Tsunoda. The Japanese driver will be making his debut. And with that, Gasly becomes the team leader at AlphaTauri. A brand new challenge for Gasly. A challenge he is expected to pass with flying colours.

Helmut Marko will be keeping a keen eye Gasly’s performances in the AlphaTauri. We know Red Bull Racing can be a stubborn lot, but they’ve finally bucked the trend by looking outside their junior set-up.

Sergio Perez arrives at the big team as they look to hunt down Mercedes. How long is Perez going to get? In reality, almost regardless of how well the Mexican performs, he will only be there for one season, two at the very most.

Marko and Christian Horner will be looking at getting one of their juniors back in the team as soon as possible. At this stage, it’s between Albon and Gasly himself.

Even though Albon is Red Bull’s reserve driver, you have to favour Gasly. Performance aside, it’s very easy to be forgotten when you’re not competing in Formula 1. Take Nico Hulkenberg as an example.

Bringing the performance back in and you’ll still probably favour Gasly. The AlphaTauri is the easier car to drive, but you can’t ignore Gasly’s fighting spirit. The now 25-year-old has a great chance to show additional leadership qualities during the 2021 season.

It’s a massive chance for Gasly if he steps up again he puts himself in a much better place to give Max Verstappen a quality teammate in 2022.

Pierre Gasly's Statistics