Pierre Gasly admits his focus will be on learning alongside Max Verstappen rather than trying to beat him.
The young Frenchman has been thrust against the Dutchman at Red Bull for 2019 and made a shaky start in testing with two crashes, the second effectively ending their pre-season early.
Moments like that have also proven why Verstappen is now considered the clear lead driver at the team, with Gasly effectively ruling out a challenge to his teammate.
“I think at the moment, it’s clearly not the target [to beat him],” he said on Thursday.
“We don’t have the same experience in the team and also in Formula 1, so I would say that would not be the right target, to focus on him at the moment.”
Instead, the 23-year-old, who showed glimpses of his potential last year with top-six finishes on three occasions, hopes to use the experience to continue his development.
“I think the main thing is to use his experience, his speed and his talent to learn and take the positives from him to basically make me stronger and learn as fast as possible within the team,” he explained.
“[I want to] be able to show my speed but it will probably take time before I feel as comfortable as I was last year with Toro Rosso, with a new engineer, new car, different teams as well.”
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As for his expectations heading into this weekend, Gasly conceded it could take time before he and Red Bull optimise the RB15.
“It’s a team that is developing the car all the time and every week pushing, we have some new parts which should improve the performance from the second test and over the next few races,” he explained.
“I’m still not as comfortable in the car as I’d like but we’re working to make the corrections and show the full potential and I think this will come with more experience.
“We should have some good performance but let’s see after practice when we can see how we can do this weekend.”
