As their origins have a close link to motorsports, Red Bull driver Max Verstappen and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly began their racing careers quite early. They participated in karting relatively around the same time and grew up to nab seats in a few of the best teams in Formula 1.
The duo spent their fair share of time together as teammates at Red Bull in 2019 before Gasly returned to Toro Rosso shortly after. As any of the Dutchman’s partners, he had a tough time living up to the success of Verstappen.
But surprisingly, the French driver has nothing but charming words for his former colleague. According to Pierre, “It was clear already from a very young age, when we raced in karting, the hype around him was already very different to any other drivers. It was clear going up the ranks that there was more attention, more focus, driven by the name, the performances, all the hype around Jos and Max’s relationship, so it was no surprise.”
🗣️ | Pierre Gasly on the hype around Max since he was young
“It was clear already from a very young age, when we raced in karting, the hype around him was already very different to any other drivers”
“The way that he came to F1 and performed and switched to Red Bull just… pic.twitter.com/CICXP8u8wz
— RBR News 🇳🇱🇲🇽 (@redbulletin) September 12, 2023
There is no doubt in what Gasly said as based on the consistency in his performance, Max Verstappen will undoubtedly go down in the history of Formula 1 as one of the greatest performers the sport has ever witnessed. Even the tough-to-please team principal at Red Bull, Christian Horner believes in the name the Dutch driver has made for himself and hopes to see him on the podium in the remaining races of the season.
WATCH: Max Verstappen nearly crashed into Pierre Gasly at Zandvoort
Despite equaling the 12-year record set by former driver Sebastian Vettel at the Dutch Grand Prix, Verstappen got a tough fight from drivers racing to pass ahead of him. Pierre Gasly was one of them.
The Alpine driver secured an impressive third-place finish at the Zandvoort track as he put good use of the time penalty that was incurred upon the second Red Bull driver, Sergio Perez. However, he had an interesting moment with Max Verstappen in the first few laps of the race.
It was at the Hugenholtz corner where intense competition between the two took place. Gasly was shoved hard into the wet surface as Verstappen drove up next to him into Turn 2 and performed an inward move through Turn 3. When questioned after the race, he said “I’ve finished more than five seconds behind Max, so it doesn’t really matter to me.”
Pierre Gasly was rather satisfied with his podium finish rather than getting to hold up the reigning World Champion. However, Max Verstappen secured victory in yet another race quite effortlessly. After dominating the entire lot of nine teams and more than half of a whole season, Verstappen is now heading towards the rugged Singapore Grand Prix to secure his maiden win at the Marina Bay track.
