Pierre Gasly is now "coming out of this delicate period" at the beginning of his career at Red Bull Racing.
That is the claim of team boss Christian Horner, apparently putting a stop to speculation that the French driver's seat is in doubt.
On paper, Gasly had another difficult weekend in Baku, but actually Horner said the former Toro Rosso driver put in a "good performance".
"His pace was very encouraging," Horner is quoted by France's Auto Hebdo.
"We could see from the beginning of practice that he was much more comfortable and confident with the car. He knows he has delivered a much stronger weekend," he said.
"He is coming out of this delicate period and gets a lot of support from us. He knows that we believe in him," Horner added. "It just takes a little while.
"We also can't forget that he has this very difficult barometer next door who is one of the best on the grid," he said, referring to Max Verstappen.
Gasly's weekend was actually characterised by penalties, the first for ignoring an order to be weighed by the FIA.
"We were about to do a pitstop practice so he was told to hurry up," Horner said.
"We had a meeting with all the teams and Ross Brawn and we all agree that we need to review the penalties that influence the rest of the weekend."
The other penalty was for a fuel flow breach.
"Particularly in Baku, the fuel flow meter fluctuates a little and even if there is no performance gain, the FIA has zero tolerance," Horner said.
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