Paris (AFP)

The cleaver fell for the French F1 driver Pierre Gasly who loses his seat at Red Bull for lack of results and will be demoted to the sister team Toro Rosso at the next Belgian Grand Prix.

Gasly, 23, had been promoted from Toro Rosso to Red Bull for this season but his results remained well below those of his teammate Max Verstappen. This prevents Red Bull from scoring valuable points in the Constructors' Championship, where she is currently 3rd with 244 points behind Mercedes (438) and Ferrari (288) before the Spa race on 1 September.

The young Normand is only 6th in the drivers standings with 63 points while Verstappen has 181 after 12 races and 9 at the end. His best result was a fourth-place finish at the British Grand Prix, while his team-mate won two races and is a regular contender for Mercedes, the domineering rider this season.

"Red Bull is able to have four talented drivers under contract and can rotate between Aston Martin Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso.The team will use the next 9 races to evaluate Alexander Albon's performance in order to make a proper decision on who will drive with Max in 2020, "says the British-Austrian team in a statement.

Albon, 23, is a British-Thai rider who runs a Thai license. He started in F1 this year at Toro Rosso and is currently in 15th place in the championship with 16 points, his best result being a 6th place in Germany.

But he was impressed by his maturity and speed while Gasly failed, despite several calls from Red Bull and his manager of the pilot Helmut Marko, to pass the top gear.

Ironically, his teammate at Toro Rosso will be the Russian Daniil Kvyat who had experienced the same mishap in 2016.

While at Red Bull, he had also been "degraded" at Toro Rosso in 2016 to make room for a Max Verstappen gnawing its brake in the sister team. His descent into hell had not stopped there since he was then fired from Toro Rosso in September 2017 to make room for ... Pierre Gasly before returning for this season.

- Premature arrival? -

Pierre Gasly probably pays a premature finish at Red Bull. The surprise start last year of the Australian Daniel Ricciardo to join Renault had precipitated his promotion while he was still his classes at Toro Rosso.

Helmut Marko found his beak in the water and forced to accelerate his passage to the stable queen. He had "drafted" Albon, though removed from the Red Bull sector a few years ago, to succeed him in the "lower" team.

He now chooses to take the risk of putting the Thai at the foot of the wall while he has only 12 F1 races to his credit, some marked by spectacular off-track.

"I'm the perfect beginner," he told AFP on the edge of the 2019 season, while his record remains quite thin (2nd in the GP3 championship in 2016, 3rd in 2018 in Formula 2 and Eurocup Formula Renault in 2014).

Gasly (who was GP2 champion in 2016) will have to win his place at Toro Rosso with a Daniil Kvyat who has no other goal than to find his wheel at Red Bull in case Albon would not show up not up to the expectations of Helmut Marko.

© 2019 AFP