In 2022, Alpine had an embarrassing episode with Oscar Piastri when they announced him as the replacement for Fernando Alonso in 2023. The Australian later claimed that the announcement was made without his consent.
He then revealed that he wouldn’t be driving for Alpine next year. It was soon revealed that he was in contact with McLaren all this while and already had an agreement with them.
This mess made Alpine seeking for another driver from the market. It all ended when they zeroed in on Pierre Gasly, and the Frenchman is already with the French team to work on the next season’s targets.
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The Alpine boss says their new recruit is faster than Oscar Piastri
Alpine lost the case against Piastri in the Contract Regulation Board (CRB) court. But in hindsight, the Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer feels that if they had won the case, they wouldn’t have missed the better pairing they have now in Gasly and Esteban Ocon.
“Look, let’s see how we do next year. I’m happy that our driving pairing with Esteban [Ocon] and Pierre is better than it would have been if we had won that case. [Gasly is] more experienced, still young. And time will tell, but I think faster,” said Szafnauer.
Gasly came as a like-for-like replacement for Alonso regarding the financial aspects. The 26-year-old will be taking a $15.6 million yearly salary home what the Spaniard took from the French team.
Red Bull didn’t promote their own
Gasly leaving Alphatauri put a huge hole in Red Bull’s sister team, AlphaTauri. Despite the loss, Red Bull understood that to make Gasly fulfil his F1 career. He needs to leave a ‘junior team’. So, they didn’t hassle much against his move to a rival.
However, finding his replacement was a challenge. In the academy setup of Red Bull, no driver has been extremely impressive to get an F1 stint. So, in the end, they had to look elsewhere.
They found a suitable replacement in Mercedes’ reserve driver Nyck de Vries. The Dutchman impressed several teams during his appearance in the Italian Grand Prix, which only influenced Red Bull chief Helmut Marko to hire him.
F1 champion Max Verstappen also had a hand in it, as he was the only one to push Vries to call Marko after his impressive Monza performance, which eventually allowed the Austrian to consider the proposition.
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