Formula 1: Gasly in Alpine, de Vries in Alpha Tauri

After two and a half months of rumors about Fernando Alonso’s replacement and the fiasco of losing Oscar Piastri to McLaren, Alpine announced at the GP from Japan that Pierre Gasly will take the Spaniard’s place in 2023.

Gasly will form an all-French duo with Esteban Ocon in an all-French team that Alpine says have signed a multi-year deal. To make it possible This required Alpine to reach an agreement with Red Bull Racing to sack Gasli from Alpha Tauri, with whom he had signed a deal effective immediately Late 2023 before the Alonso Piastri issues surfaced with the French team.

From the outset, 27-year-old Gasli seemed to be Alpine’s ideal solution to succeed Alonso. He has a lot of experience and his age fits perfectly into the team’s winning plan Ahead of 100 races (so in 4 years), has already won a GP – last year in Italy – and has consistently surpassed the skills of Alpha Tauri in recent years.

There was only one “thorn” in all of this: Gasly’s very bad relationship with Ocon. The two French riders were friends who grew up in the smaller classes but in their time by F1 was driven to the breaking point. However, the team’s race director, Ottmar Zaffnauer, seemed unconcerned with verifying the two drivers’ relationship under one roof.

For Gasli, the switch to Alpine after 9 years in the Red Bull organization was almost a one-way street. His trial run in the 2019 RBR A team was not crowned successfully, and his “demotion” to Alpha Tauri came to nothing. Especially after the new contract that Sergio Perez signed at RBR until the end of 2024 and even more because for the “first team” there is only Max Verstappen – and that will not change either.

De Vries in Alpha Tauri

For its part, shortly after Pierre Gasly’s Alpine announcement, Alpha Tauri announced that Nick de Vries would take the Frenchman’s place in the Faenza team.

The 27-year-old Dutchman had a close relationship with Mercedes, with whom he tested in Formula 1 and won the Formula E championship last year, but Toto Wolff had said recently that he had nothing else to do to advance de Vries’ career. Red Bull didn’t miss the opportunity and got a second Dutchman in his class.

The reason, of course, was the 27-year-old’s superb performance at the first GP of his career – when he was set to replace the ailing Alex Albon – in Italy this year. With a car that He didn’t know and he wasn’t even up to it and it was the least competitive of F1, he managed to get in the top ten and qualify.

De Vries, 2019 Formula 2 Champion, will be alongside Yuki Tsunoda in the Alpha Tauri garage in 2023, as just a few days ago the Faenza team extended their contract with the Japanese for the new season – to the delight of Honda and of them all. the has once again formalized its relationship with Red Bull Racing and Alpha Tauri at Suzuka until at least the end of 2025.