It’s not been the start to his Red Bull career that Pierre Gasly would have wanted, with the Frenchman having netted just four points to team mate Max Verstappen’s 27 after two races. But while Gasly believes there's still plenty of scope for improvement on the RB15 package, he was nonetheless hopeful of a strong performance in Shanghai.

Gasly endured a fraught winter testing in Barcelona, suffering not one but two confidence-wobbling shunts in his new car before the season had even got underway.

In Melbourne, he then endured the embarrassment of failing to get out of Q1 before driving to 11th place in the race, while he scored his first points of the year in Bahrain, but still finished the race over 50 seconds behind his team mate in eighth place. And ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, Gasly stated that it would take an improvement in all areas of the RB15's on-track performance to help him build his confidence with the car.

“I think it is general,” he replied when asked where he felt Red Bull had a performance deficit. “It is not one clear area we need to improve but it’s the whole package. With these new regulations, there is quite a bit of work and we are learning every time we go out on track.