Pierre Gasly won't have an easy time going up against Max Verstappen in his debut season with Red Bull according to team boss Christian Horner.
Horner admitted the Frenchman's promotion to the top team came quicker than they'd initially have liked, having completed just 26 races with Toro Rosso after being drafted in for the final races of the 2017 season.
Although Verstappen's promotion came sooner – after just 23 races with STR – the majority of Red Bull's drivers have spent at least two full seasons with the junior outfit before stepping up.
However Gasly's promotion was pushed through sooner after Daniel Ricciardo shocked the team by confirming a move to Renault, paired with Gasly's strong form in 2018 which included a fourth-place finish at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Horner said Gasly's quicker than expected promotion would be taken into account when assessing his early form.
"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," he told Autosport.
"It is faster than we would have originally liked to elevate him into the team, so Max [Verstappen] 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 team-mate."
Horner has warned that Gasly won't have it easy going up against Verstappen, but expects the team will have an easier time managing their two drivers given their differing levels of "experience" and "expectations".
"It is not going to be easy. Of course it is not. But he knows what is expected of him," added Horner.
"In actual fact, for the team, it is a far easier scenario than it has been in previous years. We have got a clear difference between the experience in the two drivers and the expectations."
Ricciardo and Verstappen famously fell out on multiple occasions over team orders as the pair often found themselves sharing the same part of the track – which in a few instances led to the pair crashing into one another.
