Formula 1: Red Bull Racing made the right decision by promoting Alexander Albon

Red Bull Racing made the right decision by replacing Pierre Gasly with Alexander Albon for the remainder of the 2019 Formula 1 season.

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing made a bombshell announcement by confirming that Alexander Albon, who had spent the first 12 races of his Formula 1 rookie season driving for Scuderia Toro Rosso, the Red Bull Racing junior team, will replace Pierre Gasly beginning with the next race on the 21-race schedule, the Belgian Grand Prix, at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

This announcement came just days after team manager Helmut Marko and team principal Christian Horner stated that they would not replace Gasly before the 2019 season concluded.

On many levels, this was the right decision for the Milton Keynes-based team in terms of replacing the 23-year-old Frenchman, doing so with the 23-year-old Thai-British driver, and demoting Gasly back to Toro Rosso.

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As far as Gasly is concerned, he had struggled since making his debut for Red Bull Racing. He recorded only five top six finishes in the season’s first 12 races and was competing with the McLaren and Alfa Romeo Racing drivers among others instead of teammate Max Verstappen and the four Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport and Scuderia Ferrari drivers like he should have been.

While Verstappen sits in third place in the driver standings behind only the two Mercedes drivers with 181 points on the strength of 12 top five finishes, including five podium finishes and two victories, Gasly sits in sixth with just 63 points. Verstappen has scored 81 points in the last four races alone.

The closest Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull Racing driver to him in the driver standings is Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who has scored more than twice as many points as he has with 132 to land himself in fifth place. In the last six races alone, he has scored 75 points.

As noted earlier this week, Gasly had been outscored by McLaren’s Carlos Sainz Jr., the current “best of the rest” driver in seventh place in the standings who trails Gasly by just five points for sixth, in the last one-race span, two-race span, three-race span, four-race span, five-race span, six-race span, seven-race span, eight-race span and nine-race span.

Horner had stated that Gasly needed to “get it together” throughout the final nine races of the 2019 season.

But it was clear that he wasn’t even really coming close to making improvements.

Only once this season did Gasly finish a race ahead of another Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull Racing driver without that other driver wrecking out or being crashed into by another driver.

He finished in fifth place in the Monaco Grand Prix, but Leclerc crashed out. He finished in a career-high fourth place in the British Grand Prix, but Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel ran into Verstappen toward the end of the race, allowing Gasly to pass them both.

Gasly finished ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and Leclerc in the German Grand Prix, but only because they crashed before he did. In fact, his crash involved him running into the back of Albon, his pseudo teammate, in a late battle for sixth place.

Gasly finally finished ahead of another one of these five drivers with his sixth place finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix, although he still disappointingly finished behind Sainz in fifth. Bottas’s Mercedes sustained wing damage early on the race’s opening lap as he was trying to battle for position, and after he came in for repairs, he could only recover to finish in eighth.

So instead of waiting until the offseason to make a chance, Red Bull Racing made a change early, which should play to their benefit. If they like what they see out of Albon, they can re-sign him for the 2020 season. If not, at least they won’t be just starting him out at the beginning of the 2020 season, only to have risk experiencing yet another situation like the one involving Gasly.

Plus, this gives Red Bull Racing a better chance to chase down Ferrari for second place in the constructor standings. Verstappen has both Ferrari teammates covered quite comfortably in the driver standings, but because of Gasly’s struggles, Ferrari have a 288 to 244 lead over Red Bull Racing for second behind Mercedes.

Additionally, sending Gasly back to Toro Rosso instead of getting rid of him altogether was the right move. Daniel Ricciardo’s shocking announcement about his impending departure from Red Bull Racing to Renault left the team scrambling last season at this time, and simply put, they rushed Gasly up from the Faenza-based team.

At Toro Rosso last season, Gasly was exceptional. He outscored rookie teammate Brendon Hartley 29 to 4 with five top 10 finishes, including a career-high fourth place finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

At the time, Gasly’s fourth place finish in this race was Honda’s best finish since Rubens Barrichello finished in third place in the 2008 British Grand Prix driving for the works Honda team, and it was the Japanese manufacturer’s best finish as an engine supplier to a customer team since Jenson Burton finished in third in the 2005 Belgian Grand Prix driving for BAR.

More time to develop at the Italian team could be just what Gasly needs.

Finally, the decision to replace Gasly with Albon as opposed to another driver, specifically Daniil Kvyat, was the right decision. Kvyat does sit in ninth place in the driver standings with 27 points on six top 10 finishes, including a third place finish in the German Grand Prix, ahead of Albon in 15th with 16 points five top 10 finishes, including a career-high sixth place finish in the same race.

However, from a consistency standpoint, Albon has Kvyat beat. His average finish of 11.67 is slightly better than Kvyat’s at 12.00.

Albon has recorded three finishes of 11th or 12th place to add to his consistency even when he hasn’t been able to score points with top 10 finishes while Kvyat has recorded only one, and he has only been forced to retire from one race while Kvyat has been forced to retire from two. He has also never finished outside of the top 15 when he hasn’t been forced to retire like Kvyat has.

Additionally, Kvyat has driven for Red Bull Racing before, and he was the most recent driver to be cut from the team during a season when he was replaced by Verstappen following the 2016 season’s fourth race.

The 25-year-old Russian ended up being demoted to Toro Rosso as Verstappen’s replacement, and then before the 2017 season ended, he was cut from Toro Rosso as well and ironically replaced by Gasly. He returned to Formula 1 ahead of the 2019 season.

Albon had been cut from the Red Bull Racing organization as well, but all the way back in 2012 after a disappointing season in Formula Renault as a member of the Red Bull Junior Team.

Regarding Albon now being the new most recent driver to replace a driver at Red Bull Racing during a season, he will have a lot to live up to what Verstappen did three seasons ago. Verstappen made his Red Bull Racing debut in the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, and he became the youngest winner in Formula 1 history at the age of 18.

As shocking as it might have seemed, Red Bull Racing did what everybody thought they should do, and they did it sooner rather than later.

Will Alexander Albon have success throughout the remainder of the 2019 Formula 1 season to capitalize on this opportunity and prove that the team made the right move? Most importantly, will he have enough success to warrant a contract with the team for the 2020 season? If not, what will Red Bull Racing’s next move be?