The Red Bull driver machine

The teams were taking a well-earned break; F1 journalists, too, as they stepped away from the 24/7 demands of social media. A couple of days into the holiday, though, it was all hands to the keyboards as Red Bull made one of the biggest announcements of the season: Pierre Gasly was being demoted with immediate effect in a swap with Alexander Albon at Toro Rosso. The fact that, 12 months previously, Albon looked to have no F1 drive at all added further poignancy to this brutal response to a driver (Gasly) not performing as Red Bull expected.

The shock decision has several strands. There is no question Gasly produced disappointing results, the 23-year-old