The French driver still had a one-year contract with AlphaTauri, but he will leave the Red Bull fold to form a 100% French duo at Alpine with Esteban Ocon.
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It had been the open secret of the paddock for several weeks already. Pierre Gasly at Alpine, it’s now official. The French team announced on Saturday October 8 the signing of the former AlphaTauri driver from the 2023 season. Gasly has committed to several years with the French team and will form a 100% tricolor duo with Esteban Ocon.
️ “I’m extremely excited about this new chapter in my life”. Welcome to the team, @PierreGasly.#Alpine #GAS10 pic.twitter.com/uPgjzofrYg
— BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) October 8, 2022
After the imbroglio around the succession of Fernando Alonso and the Oscar Piastri affair, great hope of F1 who finally set sail for McLaren, Alpine has in Pierre Gasly a driver recognized for his talent and his consistency. Winner to the general surprise of the Italian Grand Prix in 2020, the 26-year-old Norman finds a stable with more ambitions and means. Under contract with AlphaTauri, Red Bull’s little sister team, until 2023, Gasly seemed for a time stuck in a mid-table team. With the Enstone team, he should be called upon to play the Top 10 and the points in almost every race, far from the average performance of his 2022 single-seater.
He will team up with Esteban Ocon, whom he knows very well since his beginnings in karting in Normandy. The two men, who have not always maintained the warmest relationship, will form next season the first French tandem in F1 since the duo Olivier Panis-Franck Lagorce, aligned during the last two Grands Prix of the 1994 season at Ligier.
Pierre Gasly is supplemented at AlphaTauri by another young driver, the promising Nyck De Vries, given the time of a Grand Prix at Williams this season. The Dutchman had shown himself brilliant at Monza, to replace Alex Albon, affected by an attack of appendicitis.