Formula 1: Is it time for Red Bull Racing to seriously consider a driver change?

With four of the 21 races on the 2019 Formula 1 schedule in the books, is it time for Red Bull Racing to seriously consider a driver change?

Ever since the 2019 Formula 1 season began, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s Pierre Gasly has struggled in his first season driving for the Milton Keynes-based team.

Red Bull Racing along with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport and Scuderia Ferrari have combined to win each of the last 122 Formula 1 races going all the back to early in the 2013 season.

Drivers for these three teams are expected to qualify for and finish each race in the top six barring mechanical issues or other issues out of their control, so much so that “best of the rest” has become an unofficial title for the highest finishing non-Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull Racing driver.

The 23-year-old Frenchman has not lived up to this standard. Is it time for Red Bull Racing to seriously consider replacing him with rumors already swirling that they may do so?

Gasly signed with the team last August to replace the Renault-bound Daniel Ricciardo during his first season as a full-time driver. He spend the 2018 season driving for Scuderia Toro Rosso, the Red Bull Racing junior team.

More from Formula One

• Formula 1: Top Red Bull threat identified for 2024
• Formula 1: Why the Max Verstappen retirement obsession?
• Formula 1: Williams ‘mistake’ hints Logan Sargeant’s future
• Formula 1 awaiting key confirmation for 2024 season
• Formula 1: The ‘championship’ Max Verstappen only leads by 3 points

Gasly showed promise during his rookie season at Toro Rosso by recording a top finish of fourth place in the Bahrain Grand Prix and finishing in 15th in the driver standings with a solid 29 points thanks to his five top 10 finishes.

But through the first four races of the 2019 season, he has been a major disappointment.

Gasly qualified in 17th place for the season opener, the Australian Grand Prix, before going on to finish the race in 11th. He then qualified in 13th for the season’s second race, the Bahrain Grand Prix, before going on to finish in eighth. He did manage to qualify for and finish the season’s third race, the Chinese Grand Prix in sixth, and he recorded the race’s fastest lap as a result of the fact that he made a late pit stop for new tires.

Gasly was poised to finish in sixth place in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after starting from the pit lane before brake issues forced him to retire, but he was poised to finish in a distant sixth, well off of the pace set by teammate Max Verstappen and the four Mercedes and Ferrari drivers.

Up to this point in the season, the five Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull Racing drivers not named Gasly have all recorded four top five finishes. Gasly, meanwhile, has not yet finished a race in the top five this season, and he has only finished in the expected top six in one race.

Three of the four races that have been contested so far this season have resulted in the “best of the rest” finishing ahead of Gasly, and in all three of these races, multiple “best of the rest” contenders have done so. In fact, Gasly is tied for sixth place in the driver standings with two of these drivers, SportPesa Racing Point’s Sergio Perez and Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen.

Is it time for Red Bull Racing to replace him, likely with either Daniil Kvyat or Alexander Albon, Toro Rosso’s two drivers?

Red Bull Racing are certainly no strangers to early-season driver changes. In the 2016 season, they replaced Kvyat with Verstappen ahead of the season’s fifth race, the Spanish Grand Prix, and demoted Kvyat back to Toro Rosso, where he spent the entirety of the 2014 season, his rookie season. The then 18-year-old Verstappen ended up winning that race.

Kvyat was certainly no Michael Schumacher during his first one-plus seasons at Red Bull Racing, but his performance throughout the 2015 season and through the first four races of the 2016 season was superior to Gasly’s performance so far this season. Kvyat recorded a career-high second place finish in the 2015 Hungarian Grand Prix, and he finished in third in the 2016 Chinese Grand Prix, his penultimate race driving for the team.

Should Red Bull Racing seriously consider replacing Pierre Gasly for the remainder of the 2019 Formula 1 season in the near future, or should they continue to give him time to attempt to prove that he belongs at one of the sport’s top-tier teams? At this point, it could go either way, but it is hard to see them not at least discussing the matter.