Pierre Gasly summed up his start to life at Red Bull with a horrible race at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Facing a battle against the two Renaults, including the man he replaced Daniel Ricciardo, the Frenchman failed spectacularly falling to a lowly eighth place.
“It was a pretty difficult day but the car actually felt quite good so it is disappointing to finish where we did,” he said.
“We expected to be stronger than this. We struggled with traffic and had to save the brakes, which compromised us a bit, and I, of course, wanted to finish better than this.
“We need to analyse everything and see what we can improve but I also need to work hard before the next race. I hope we can find more pace and come back stronger for my home race.”
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Red Bull boss Christian Horner continued to back Gasly, but his defence of the 23-year-old actually proved how poor his performance was.
“With Pierre, we tried to get the undercut on Daniel during the pit stop,” he explained.
“We nearly made it, but he unfortunately got stuck behind [Lance] Stroll which pretty much ended his race, allowing Hülkenberg to sneak ahead.
With teammate Max Verstappen having to fight his way back through after being eliminated in Q2 in qualifying, the final outcome was Red Bull’s worse weekend of 2019 so far.
“Fifth and eighth were not the results we were looking for but heads down and the focus is on Paul Ricard,” Horner added.