Former IndyCar and now Le Mans driver Mikhail Aleshin believes that Pierre Gasly’s debut performance for Red Bull in the opening Grand Prix of the season in Australia was so disappointing that the Frenchman could be replaced by Daniil Kvyat sooner rather than later.
Despite Max Verstappen putting in an impressive showing in Melbourne to finish third in the same car, Gasly ended up finishing out of the points in 11th, with Kvyat one spot ahead in 10th.
Aleshin, a compatriot of Kyyat, reckons the Toro Rosso driver’s performance will put him in strong contention to replace Gasly - even after just one race.
"It was very good to see Kvyat showing his character and not letting Pierre Gasly go past in Melbourne," Aleshin told Sportbox.
"It is hard to know why Gasly drove so inexpressively, but if Kvyat continues in the same spirit, we can all have hope that Daniil could move to the stronger team.
"I understand that such thoughts may be premature, but for us this situation is, of course, positive.”
Some positives & negatives to take with us from Australia. Not the outcome we wanted obviously but practices were good, then qualifying clearly cost us a lot & made our Sunday difficult to recover on such a track with couple issues. We will bounce back in Bahrain. pic.twitter.com/jdHYYMAPdu