Juan Pablo Montoya delivers Pierre Gasly praise

Juan Pablo Montoya has issued praise for the way Pierre Gasly has turned things around with AlphaTauri.

Gasly lost his Red Bull seat midway through the 2019 season, with him replaced at the time by Alex Albon.

He went to Toro Rosso, who rebranded as AlphaTauri for 2020, and has since managed to get his career back on track, with him seen as one of the strongest drivers on the grid.

That’s something that hasn’t been lost on Montoya, too, with him telling Vegas Insider:

“From the young guys as well, you got to look at the two guys, (Pierre) Gasly has been around in F1 for a while and it’s interesting because I don’t know how different the environment in Red Bull and AlphaTauri is really, but he really feels at home at AlphaTauri and he excels at it.

“He matured a lot through last year. He got to learn a lot.

“The crazy thing with F1 is when you’re really good, they give you a lot of breaks. And I think Red Bull changed their mentality lately and have been a little nicer to their guys because they used to give them a chance, and two races later someone and two races, somebody else.

“They were not really giving people enough of a chance to perform and I think that’s changed a bit.

“They still need to perform.”