Lucky Gasly lucked in when Ricciardo ditched Red Bull

Now that the dust has long settled it is clear that the biggest winner in this saga is Red Bull's new boy Pierre Gasly.

Rewinding to the summer, Ricciardo's move was the coup of the decade on the F1 driver front. It caught everyone by surprise, most of all Red Bull management who were disbelieving of the news when delivered by the Aussie.

Prior to that, there were a few contract niggles between the parties that stopped and stuttered and delayed what everyone thought would be a no-brainer signing. But as we know the ink did not flow as we all expected...

Ponder this: had Ricciardo done what we expected and extended his deal with Red Bull for at least another year, it would have meant that they, along with Mercedes and Haas, would have retained the same driver line-up as last year, with Max Verstappen in the sister car.

Had all gone to plan Esteban Ocon would have gone to Renault with Carlos Sainz heading to McLaren as happened, but the Mercedes reserve lost out in the frenzy of musical chairs that left him standing.

Of course, in that case, Pierre Gasly would have remained with Toro Rosso for another season, with Daniil Kvyat bumping Brendon Hartley no matter what happened thus the team would have been spared the scramble to fill the seat that finally went to Alexander Albon.

In the end, the big winner in the Ricciardo to Renault saga was Gasly but, at the same time, questions would be forgiven regarding his state of readiness to take on the might of Verstappen.

Indeed his new team principal Christian Horner believes the Frenchman may be stepping up at the wrong time, he told Motorsport Network, “I think Pierre is a very quick driver and it is up to us to give him a little bit of time to get up to speed."

The team chief admitting that the timing of the promotion is not ideal, “It is faster than we would have originally liked to elevate him into the team, so Max will be very much taking on the role of the experienced senior driver and Pierre is going to have to go up against a very competitive teammate.”

“It is not going to be easy. Of course, it is not. But he knows what is expected of him. And in actual fact, for the team, it is a far easier scenario than it has been in previous years where we have got a clear difference between the experience in the two drivers and the expectations,” added Horner.

Suggesting that there was method to their madness when they opted to bring back Daniil Kvyat for a third stint with Toro Rosso, the Russian could well be the Plan-B should Gasly not deliver on expectations.