The driver market has taken an interesting but an unsurprising turn, as Alpine F1 Team has announced that Pierre Gasly will be racing for the French outfit in 2023 and beyond. The multi-year deal comes in the aftermath of Alonso announcing his departure from the team to replace Sebastian Vettel at Aston Martin, as Vettel is set to retire at the end of the year. Pierre Gasly will join Esteban Ocon at Alpine, to make an all-French driver line-up for the French outfit for 2023.
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“Driving for a team that has French roots is something very special. I know the strengths of Alpine having raced against them over the past couple of years and, clearly, their progress and ambition is very impressive," Gasly said. “Looking ahead, I want to give the maximum and utilise all my experience to fight for podiums and ultimately contribute to Alpine’s fight for championships in the future.”
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“I trust Pierre and Esteban can, together, motivate the team to continue its progress towards these goals. We would also like to thank Red Bull for agreeing the terms to allow Pierre to take this step,” Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer said. Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi added, "As a young, but highly experienced and successful driver, his trajectory is on course with our own, and we look forward to growing together.”
While Alonso's departure did leave an open seat at Alpine, signing Gasly to replace the Spaniard wasn't a straightforward choice. Alpine initially intended to sign Oscar Piastri as his replacement, but in a whole saga of a contractual war, Alpine lost Piastri to McLaren. Not only did Piastri's move to McLaren mean that the Alpine seat was blown open, but also, his contract put Daniel Ricciardo out of a seat for 2023 as well, on the back of 2 sub-optimal seasons with the Woking based team.
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8-time Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo could be on the sidelines for 2023.
This suggested that Alpine could very well sign Ricciardo for 2023. Ricciardo was racing for the team - which was named Renault at the time - until 2020, and a return seemed quite plausible, but Alpine chose against signing the Australian. Gasly was the next best choice for the team, but he was contracted with AlphaTauri for 2023 as well.
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Pierre Gasly was initially contracted with AlphaTauri for 2023.
Seeing this move was on cards, Red Bull decided to release the junior from his contractual obligations for next year, for an early departure to the Alpine works team. Gasly desperately wanted to get back to a works team after he was demoted from Red Bull mid-season in 2019. Gasly has since shown tremendous improvement, but for multiple reasons, Red Bull decided not to promote him to the works team again.
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Gasly's seat was initially anticipated to be filled by IndyCar driver Colton Herta, but FIA didn't allow him to join the team due to a lack of superlicense points. Meanwhile, Nyck de Vries also made his F1 debut with Williams replacing an unwell Albon for the Italian GP, and scored points on his debut. His impressive performance on debut, and the fact that he was the 2019 Formula 2 champion and 2021 Formula E champion helped his case, and now the AlphaTauri seat will be filled by the Mercedes junior driver Nyck de Vries in 2023, with Tsunoda already confirmed with the outfit for next year.
Nyck de Vries' impressive performance to score points on his F1 debut for Williams at Italy helped his case at Alpine.
However, the silly season is still not over, as there is a seat left at Williams and Haas. There's a good chance that Mick Schumacher will re-sign with Haas for next year, and Williams may see Formula 2 driver Logan Sargeant in the team. The American driver is currently third in the F2 standings, and with Williams now owned by Dorilton Capital - an American Investment firm - Sargeant's chances are great. This will mean that Ricciardo will be out of Formula 1 - at least for next year - and it will be a big blow for the sport to lose a driver of his pedigree, talent, and influence.
