Pierre Gasly will attack his third Grand Prix with Red Bull Racing this weekend in China, with the Frenchman aiming to fight higher up the field than he achieved in either of his first two outings in 2019.
Since joining Red Bull from Scuderia Toro Rosso, Gasly has not had the best of times on board the RB15, with a Q1 elimination in the Australian Grand Prix being followed by an eleventh-place finish, while he suffered a Q2 elimination in Bahrain, although he was able to recover to finish eighth.
“I’m really excited to go racing again for the third round of the season,” said Gasly. “China is not actually a place I really know well and last year was my first race there but I’m looking forward to going back.
“Shanghai is a really special track with the long back straight and the technical part at the beginning. Now we just need to keep the improvements we’ve made from one race to another and hopefully we’ll be able to find some more performance and fight for even better points.”
Gasly scored his first points of the season last time out in Bahrain despite enduring a second consecutive difficult weekend, and he is focused on improving further this weekend in Shanghai.
“Looking back to Bahrain, it was not an easy weekend with the changing conditions but at the same time it was good to finish inside the points,” added Gasly.
“Now we’re just focusing on the areas we can improve on before next weekend.”
The Chinese Grand Prix marks Formula 1’s one-thousandth Grand Prix, and it holds a special place in Red Bull’s history as well, with Sebastian Vettel taking the squad’s first ever victory back in 2009.
“Red Bull took its first victory in China and this year’s race is also F1’s 1000th Grand Prix so it will be a special weekend,” said the Frenchman.
