Pierre Gasly Admits The Truth About Red Bull’s Max Verstappen Bias

Looking back at the 2019 Formula 1 season feels like watching a horror movie where you already know who will be eliminated in the first act. We all watched it happen.

The second seat at Red Bull Racing has been the “Defense Against the Dark Arts” position of the motorsport world—cursed, volatile, and career-threatening. But few drivers had it quite as rough as Gasly.

It’s been years since the Frenchman was unceremoniously demoted back to the junior team after just 12 races, but the scars clearly run deep.

In a recent candid admission that surprises absolutely no one who has been paying attention, Gasly has finally opened up about the “strange dynamics” and blatant favoritism that plagued his short stint alongside Max Verstappen. And honestly? It sounds like an absolute nightmare.

1. Player 1 vs. Player 2

We all know Max Verstappen is a generational talent. He’s the main character, the guy with the plot armor, the server admin. But Gasly has revealed that the disparity between the two sides of the garage wasn’t just about skill—it was about resources. According to Gasly, the team’s preference for Verstappen wasn’t subtle. It was a feature, not a bug. Speaking recently about that tumultuous time, Gasly noted that the car seemed perfectly tailored for Max’s aggressive, pointy driving style. At the same time, he was left scrambling to adapt to machinery that fought him at every turn. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t made for two cars,” Gasly said, throwing a subtle bit of shade that hits the nail on the head. It’s the classic “Player 2” syndrome. You get the unplugged controller, or in Gasly’s case, a car development path that ignores your feedback entirely. While Max was racking up podiums and wins, Gasly was struggling to crack the top five, eventually getting the boot before the season even wrapped up.

2. Set Up to Fail?

Here is where things get genuinely frustrating for Gasly fans. It’s one thing to lose to a better driver; it’s another to show up to a gunfight with a spoon. Gasly dropped a bombshell regarding his support network within the team, revealing that he was paired with a new race engineer, Mike Lugg, who had no prior experience in Formula 1. Imagine getting called up to the major leagues, the pressure is at an all-time high, your teammate is a literal prodigy, and your guide is just figuring out the controls himself. Gasly described the dynamic as “strange” and admitted he felt zero support from the team. “I wasn’t really given the tools to really perform,” he admitted. It feels less like a racing team and more like a social experiment to see how much stress a human can take before breaking. Perhaps the saddest part of this retrospective is Gasly admitting he spent 2019 comparing notes with Charles Leclerc. While Gasly was drowning in the Red Bull pressure cooker, Leclerc was over at Ferrari, living his best life in his debut season with the Scuderia. The two drivers had similar experience levels and trajectories, yet their treatment by their respective top teams couldn’t have been more different. It highlights just how toxic the environment at Milton Keynes can be for anyone whose last name isn’t Verstappen. Gasly mentioned discussing the differences with Leclerc often, realizing that the support system he needed didn’t exist in his garage.

3. Escaping the Toxicity

Red Bull CEO Oliver Mintzlaff might call the “Verstappen is Boss” narrative nonsense, claiming Max isn’t a diva, but the track record speaks for itself. Since Daniel Ricciardo left, Red Bull has consistently replaced and discarded teammates with ruthless efficiency. Albon, Perez, and Gasly all faced the same wall. For Gasly, the demotion back to Toro Rosso (later AlphaTauri) wasn’t a punishment—it was a lifeline. He described leaving that environment as a “relief,” noting the overwhelming “negative energy” that permeated his time there. And considering he went on to win at Monza in an AlphaTauri—a mid-field car—it proves the talent was always there. He just needed a team that didn’t treat him like a spare part. Ultimately, Gasly has moved on to Alpine, but his reflection on 2019 serves as a cautionary tale. In the high-stakes game of F1, talent isn’t enough if the game is rigged against you from the start.

• Tags:
• Max Verstappen