2019 Red Bull driver Pierre Gasly believes the rise of new talent into Formula 1 is a “good thing” for the sport going forward.
Next season will see multiple changes at both ends of the grid with Gasly and Charles Leclerc bringing new faces to the front as the Monegasque heads to Ferrari replacing Kimi Raikkonen.
The only exception is Esteban Ocon, who is set for a year on the sidelines, but together the trio is expected to shake things up in the coming years and will do so after a long history together.
“I think honestly we had a pretty good generation with Charles [Leclerc], Esteban [Ocon] because we raced together since 2005,” Gasly was quoted by GPFans.
“So the fact that we kept racing each other every year, I think it was useful for all of us trying to extract the best of ourselves and it kind of raised our game for all of us. It was a really good thing.”
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It isn’t just a French invasion either lingually speaking with two young Briton’s joining the fray at McLaren and Williams.
“We see also some new guys like [Lando] Norris coming and [George] Russell. Kind of a new generation coming into F1,” Gasly claimed.
“Probably for the people that didn’t follow the F1 in the last five years [who] will start to follow again either next year or in two years the grid will change quite a lot.
“But I think it’s a pretty good thing, fresh people in F1, I think we have a lot of ambitions, all of us, we know what we want and it’s great,” he continued.
“We’ve been growing together in the lower series and now we are at the top of motorsports still fighting and hopefully will keep going for the next few years.”
Though names like Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel may not be on the grid for too much longer, the amount of talent coming through means F1 is in safe hands for the next decade at least.