‘Right Decision’ to Leave Red Bull Family to Join Alpine in 2023 – Pierre Gasly

Pierre Gasly heads into the final four races of his Scuderia AlphaTauri career feeling that it was the right decision to sign for the BWT Alpine F1 Team for the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season and beyond.

The Frenchman had been announced to remain with AlphaTauri earlier in 2022, but once the driver merry go round began with Sebastian Vettel’s retirement announcement and the news that Fernando Alonso would replace him at the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team, rumours began to swirl around the paddock that Gasly was a preferred choice to replace the Spaniard at Alpine.

Gasly took his maiden Formula 1 race victory for AlphaTauri in the 2020 Italian Grand Prix and has scored two additional podiums since he re-joined the team after an ill-fated ten-race stint with Red Bull Racing in 2019.

His departure to Alpine will end nine years of association with Red Bull after they brought the Frenchman into their Red Bull Junior Team before promoting him to Formula 1 in 2017, but Gasly feels it was the right time to move on.

“The opportunity came up in the summer and we started to have conversations about it,” Gasly is quoted as saying by Motorpsort.com.  “It’s obviously a big move for me, I’ve been with Red Bull for nine years, pretty much my entire career with them.

“It definitely feels like closing a chapter and starting on a new journey. To me, I must say, it felt natural and very quickly the right decision to take.

“Just based on where I am in my career, based on Alpine’s ambition, based on their progress over the last few years. Just getting better and better every season, they have this strategy to be fighting at the front over the next 100 grands prix, and they are just going in the right direction.

“For me, it’s also the right time to take off on my own, grab this opportunity with a manufacturer. I definitely believe in this project, and I’m very excited about it.”

Gasly revealed that he was told early on that he was first choice to replace Alonso, once the Oscar Piastri farcical announcement and court case went the way of the McLaren F1 Team.

“That was definitely one of the most important, let’s say, criteria for me, which made it very clear for me that I should go there, is how strong their will was to get me out of Red Bull and to get me in that car,” he said.

“They made it very clear straight away they had to work very hard in terms of negotiations, it was not an easy deal to make between all parties involved.

“And it just felt like straight away they really pushed so hard to get me, and they really believe in that project.”