Why the FIA intervened when Helmut Marko tried to replace Pierre Gasly with brand new F1 driver

Pierre Gasly joined the Formula 1 grid as a product of the Red Bull driver academy. He made his debut late in the 2017 season following Carlos Sainz’s early move to Renault.

Gasly then secured the seat full-time for 2018 and impressed, scoring 29 of Toro Rosso’s 33 points. With Daniel Ricciardo leaving Red Bull, he was the outstanding candidate to partner Max Verstappen.

Helmut Marko promised he’d give Gasly time, but he started 2019 so poorly that he was demoted back to Toro Rosso in the summer. Like Alex Albon and Sergio Perez after him, he suffered major reputational damage alongside the mighty Verstappen.

The Frenchman would slowly rebuild his image at Faenza. He scored his first-ever F1 podium in Brazil at the end of the year – Gasly has a photo of his drag race with Lewis Hamilton at the end of the race on his wall.

And he completed his redemptive arc in 2020 with a remarkable maiden victory at the Italian Grand Prix. Gasly will never return to Red Bull, but after a spell as the AlphaTauri team leader alongside Daniil Kvyat and Yuki Tsunoda, he found a new home at Alpine.

The Enstone outfit are building around him, having extended his contract for multiple years in 2024. He will partner rookie Jack Doohan this year.

Pato O’Ward claims the FIA wanted to protect Pierre Gasly at his expense

It was clear, given Gasly’s desperate performances alongside Verstappen, that he wouldn’t get a second chance under Christian Horner. From that point of view, it made little sense keeping him at Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri – a proving ground for future Red Bull drivers.

Thus Marko made plans to replace him for good for the 2020 season. He offered a contract to 20-year-old IndyCar starlet Pato O’Ward.

However, while the late race director Charlie Whiting was ready to grant him a superlicence, the FIA subsequently raised the bar. They demanded that O’Ward race in Super Formula to accumulate more points.

He appeared three times in the Japanese series, but that was insufficient. Having dropped off Marko’s radar, he argued that the governing body, based in Paris, tried to protect French driver Gasly.

“Red Bull marked me,” O’Ward, now a McLaren reserve, told the Roberto Mtz YouTube channel. “Marko actually signed me. I signed a Formula 1 contract to enter in the Toro Rosso seat at the end of 2019.

“At the end [sic] of that year, Charlie Whiting, who was in charge of the FIA, died. The one who had already approved my superlicence.

“[Afterwards], they did not want to give me the licence because I was going to take the space from a Frenchman [Gasly]. They sent me to Japan to try to get the points for their licence. I couldn’t get points because it’s not the full championship.”

A new Pierre Gasly joins the Formula 1 grid for the 2025 season

With hindsight, O’Ward is partly relieved that he missed out on the seat. He admits he wasn’t mentally mature enough to race in F1.

He said: “The truth is, if you asked me if I was ready to go up to Formula 1 in 2019, [I’d say] no. Mentally, as a person, I was not ready. If that happened, I don’t know if I would still be there.”

Meanwhile, Gasly’s stock is higher than ever after a ‘remarkable’ late surge, in the words of Jolyon Palmer. Powered by a podium finish in Brazil, he snatched 10th place in the championship.

In 2025, Red Bull will welcome a new face to the grid in Isack Hadjar. F2 expert Alex Jacques says last year’s runner-up Hadjar is ‘very, very similar’ to Gasly, with ‘incredible’ speed but clear areas to improve.