Red Bull boss Christian Horner says that he needs Pierre Gasly to start contributing to the team's championship campaign on a more regular basis in the second half of 2019.

So far this season, Max Verstappen has scored points in every one of the 11 races, finishing no lower than fifth place.

By comparison Gasly has had a more ragged time since he moved to the senior team from Toro Rosso over the winter. He failed to score points in Australia and Azerbaijan, and then crashed out last weekend in Germany.

His total points haul so far is 55, which is just over a third of the amount picked up by his team mate. As a result, Red Bull is behind Mercedes and Ferrari in the constructors standings - and increasingly falling away from title contention.

"If we can start double scoring, that’s our target in the second half of the year, to close that gap down," Horner acknowledged. "[But] it’s been up and down."

Gasly's most recent miss in Hockenheim had been a particular blow as far as Horner was concerned, especially since both Ferrari drivers suffered technical issues in qualifying and started the race out of position on the grid.

Verstappen meanwhile lined up in second and went on to win the race, while Gasly qualified in fourth but then lost ground at the start.

"Gasly had a strong qualifying. He had a difficult first pit stop, there was a problem with the right-rear wheel nut. And then they had to hold him because a whole queue of cars came in.

"He was recovering well - recovering, recovering, recovering - then on the last restart he passed [Sebastian] Vettel but went wide on three consecutive laps at turn 1. And that’s where the other cars got past him.

"Then obviously, racing with Albon they tripped over each other," he said of the incident on lap 61 when the two drivers were battling over sixth place.

"It was frustrating because it was a good opportunity to take a lot of points out of Ferrari,' Horner pointed out. "But instead of taking 20-odd points out of them we’ve only taken seven or eight."

Red Bull won four back-to-back constructors championships from 2010 until 2013, and last beat Ferrari to second place in 2016. Since then they've had to settle for third place in the standings.

But Gasly is hoping to redeem himself with a strong showing this weekend in Hungary, where he finished in sixth place in 2018.

"In Germany I was disappointed not to finish the race as there were a lot of points on offer,” he admitted. "But we will continue to focus and I’m confident that soon we’ll get our reward.

"Budapest brings back a lot of good memories from last year’s race with Toro Rosso," he noted. "It was my second best result of the year with P6.

"I’ve had a lot of good races in Hungary with victories, podiums and pole positions in GP2, Formula Renault 3.5 and 2.0."

He added that the notorious heat of the city in the middle of summer didn't bother him. "I like the warm temperatures. I feel good when I’m there and I’m always excited to race on this track.

"The Hungaroring is the kind of circuit where Red Bull has been pretty strong in previous years, and hopefully that remains to be the case this year.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

Recent Posts

Las Vegas GP: Hamilton continues on top in second practice

Lewis Hamilton put Mercedes on top of the timesheets for the second time in Last…

6 mins ago

Leclerc confident Ferrari ‘has a shot’ at F1 Constructors’ title

Charles Leclerc believes that Ferrari has a genuine “shot” at beating rival McLaren to Formula…

1 hour ago

Komatsu: F1 teams united against Audi 2026 cost-cap offset

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu has revealed that nine Formula 1 teams stand in opposition…

2 hours ago

Las Vegas GP: Hamilton leads Mercedes 1-2 in trouble-free FP1

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell led the field in a chilly but trouble-free first practice…

4 hours ago

2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix Free Practice 1 - Results

Full results from Free Practice 1 for the Las Vegas Grand Prix in the United…

4 hours ago

Aston Martin says performance shortfall led to Fallows exit

Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough has shed some light on why the team’s former…

13 hours ago