Another season at AlphaTauri for Gasly officially confirmed

2023 F1 season

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Pierre Gasly’s long association with Red Bull’s junior Formula 1 team, which began five years ago, will continue for at least one more season.

AlphaTauri has confirmed Gasly will drive for them next year. The official announcement comes after Gasly told RaceFans in April he will remain at his current team in 2023 and his team principal Franz Tost said the same at last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix.

Gasly’s hopes of a return to Red Bull Racing, where he spent an unsuccessful half-season in 2019, were dashed when the team announced a new two-year contract for Sergio Perez earlier this season.

He said he is “happy to remain with my Scuderia AlphaTauri team” for next year. “This year’s new regulations have created new challenges for us and being able to plan our development with the team for the next 18 months is a good working basis for the future.”

Tost said Gasly is “definitely in the group of the best and most competitive drivers in F1 and has proven his abilities during all the time he has spent with us.

“Undoubtedly, Pierre can play a major role in the team having a successful season next year and it will be down to us to provide him with a competitive car, so that he can continue to deliver excellent results.”

Gasly is already on course to become the longest-serving driver at Red Bull’s junior F1 team, which was previously known as Toro Rosso. He is due to surpass Daniil Kvyat’s tally of 89 starts at Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri before the current season ends.

The identity of Gasly’s team mate for next year has not yet been announced. Yuki Tsunoda, who joined the team last year, is in his second season alongside Gasly.

View the current list of 2023 F1 drivers and teams

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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24 comments on “Another season at AlphaTauri for Gasly officially confirmed”

  1. Surprised. I thought at least one out of Ricciardo and Vettel’s seat would come to him.

    1. Vettel or DR come to them? AT is a driver development team. AT wouldn’t want a veteran driver outside their pipeline, unless he basically covered 10+ million more than half their running expenses. Secondly, Vettel would retire before going to Red Bull Jr. DR, I am not sure about. Maybe he’d be willing to spend a year showing he was still fast. Maybe. But again, unless RBR wanted to give him a place to sit until Perez left, why would they want him there?

  2. “There has been a change and an upgrade from a junior team to a sister team,” Marko told Motorsport-Magazin at the AlphaTauri launch.

    “Everything that is permitted and as far as our capacities are sufficient is provided to AlphaTauri.”

    -Helmut Marko, AlphaTauri launch, 2020

    Wise choice for Gasly, the other midfield teams aren’t much of an upgrade in terms of position and opportunity, and he seems to fit will within the team. Even if he had another opportunity, which I don’t feel he had, AlphaTauri is a good place to be at for him.

  3. Considering how quick that was after the Perez announcement, I can’t help but think he’s only interested in Red Bull. Makes sense too, nothing’s opening up at Mercedes or Ferrari and they’re the only contenders.

    1. Bruno Verrari
      25th June 2022, 2:01

      He fulfills the last year of his multi-year RB contract in 2023. Then he can fly!

  4. With so many big names close to retirement, I simply don’t understand why this guy sticks himself so much to the RB family. It’s a pity, I would have been really interested in what he could do in a McLaren.

    1. Maybe that’s exactly why.
      He’s making a name for himself there, the team suits him well, the cars seem to work for him… the stocks go up.
      Why risk a Ricciardo while going to a team that “might” perform a bit better – or why do a sideways move and go to a team that won’t.

      1. Because AT is a junior team. Which means
        1 there is zero chance of ever becoming a top team
        2 once RB finds promising rookies to give a try, he will be kvyatted from AT
        He must either take a risk or accept that his 2020 victory is very likely his career top (except maybe the very slight chance of a far future repromotion to RB, where he did definitely not fit in).

        1. What is the last time anyone other than Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari were a top team? Seriously.

          1. Not so long ago, the question was: what is the last time anyone other than Mercedes was a top team? Times change. Ferrari was on par with McLaren last year and was much more inferior in 2020, yet they are a top team this year.
            There is a big difference between “not being a top team right now” and “never permitted to be a top team”. Since the existence of the RB junior team, 7 of the actual 10 teams (or their predecessors) were capable to finish at least 3rd in the constructors’ championship in at least one season. Toro Rosso/Alpha Tauri’s all time best is 6th.

        2. Mate. I’m not cherrypicking seasons. McLaren’s 2021 season is in the past. It was still only competing for best of the rest position behind the top teams in 2021. And even though McLaren looked like becoming a top team in 2021. They aren’t anymore. I could have easily picked 2020 and said Racing Point was going to be a top team. But that hasn’t happened. Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes have been top teams most of the time since 2014 in the hybrid era. The only thing happened was Ferrari became a midfield team in 2014, 2020 and 2021, Red Bull became a midfield team in 2015 and Mercedes looks like a midfield team in 2022. But while one of them is struggling the other two is always competing for top positions. Since 2014 every team’s stats are like this.
          Mercedes-111 wins and 237 podiums
          Red Bull-35 wins and 114 podiums
          Ferrari-19 wins 99 podiums

          Williams-0 wins 16 podiums
          McLaren-1 win 11 podiums
          Aston Martin-1 win 10 podiums
          Alpine-1 win 6 podiums
          Alphatauri-1 win 4 podiums
          Haas-0 podiums
          Alfa Romeo-0 podiums

          Clearly going to McLaren is as useless as going to Williams.

    2. He may be stymied when any prospective team ask the question ‘How much sponsorship can you bring?’. Within RBR that is not necessarily required (although having a connection like Carlos Slim may oil the wheels). Staying with AT means a) he does have a drive for next year and b) he is in a team that he knows and seems to like. In the circumstances, that’s a good option.

  5. Some say he could have taken a seat in Mclaren or Aston Martin
    Some say he will never drive Red Bull again
    But all we know is
    He’s staying at Alpha Tauri

  6. If he gets back to his 21 performance levels then surely he’ll be in with a great chance for the McLaren seat to test himself alongside Norris. Half a season in an insanely hard-to-drive car shouldn’t be enough to dismiss him. I want to see him up against someone like Norris to see where he stands.

    1. Half a season in an insanely hard-to-drive car shouldn’t be enough to dismiss him.

      Why not? The guy in the other “insanely hard-to-drive car” managed to excel.

  7. Gasly is not f1 material but RB is happy with it’s A team so another year. Reminds me of Kvyat.

  8. It’s a bit of a mixed bag for Gasly, who may have preferred to escape from the Red Bull ecosphere and move to somewhere like McLaren or Aston Martin. But it seems pretty clear there wasn’t a good opportunity there. So this is his best short-term option.

    However what does this say about the upcoming Red Bull Young drivers? If Lawson, Vips, Daruvula or Hauger were outstanding in F2 this year, they surely would be considered for an Alpha Tauri seat, but one of those is now locked out. Does this suggest that Tsunoda still needs to improve relative to Gasly, or that none of their young drivers will likely be promoted next year? I’m leaning towards the latter, as Red Bull already have their hands full keeping their talent (including Albon) entertained!

  9. I think Gasly is maybe a bit overated. Alpha Tauri is better than it looks like in the last 2 seasons. That said he’s an interesting option if any of the teams needs an experienced driver over a rookie, but I don’t think Red Bull will ever promote him again, they have a lot of data, they know better than us how good he’s.

    1. It seems like Red Bull (as every good team) works best with a clear number 1 and clear number 2 driver. Hakkinen/Couldhard, Schumi/Barrichello, Vettel/Webber, Hamilton/Bottas etc. If their car will work and Ferrari’s won’t we could see another domination on our way. Look what has happened if there are two number 1 driver in the team it doesn’t work.

      1. About Hakkinen/Coulthard didn’t Coulthard beat Hakkinen 2 of the 6 seasons they were together? And Coulthard is much much worse than Webber. Makes me question how good Hakkinen actually was(Better than Barrichello obviously going by the Brundle comparison).

        1. According to mathematical models, hakkinen wasn’t that good, he was indeed better than couldthard and barrichello but not close to schumacher’s level, mathematical models such as f1 metrics blog suggest he’s been overrated due to having a better car the years they were fighting for titles.

          1. Yeah. But Barrichello is kinda overrated in the F1 metrics blog. I also kinda get it. Because Button somehow beat Hamilton in 2011 and this elevates Barrichello’s ranking because Barrichello was quite close to him. But I mean Seriously to say he is better than Hakkinen is laughable. Hakkinen utterly destroyed Brundle 15-0 in 1994. Barrichello only beat Brundle 11-5, 2 years later in 1996.

            And also Coulthard is kinda underrated. When he and Barrichello were in similar cars in 2000 and 2001 Coulthard beat him both years. DC’s performances before and after weren’t very good though. Seriously I think he drove like an amateur for some reason against Mark Webber in 2007-2008. The gaps were huge.

          2. If I recall correctly. Hakkinen’s strength was qualifying. Over a single lap he was great and nearly always better than his team mate.
            Gasly is lucky to be where he is. If he wants another team to come looking for him, my guess is he needs to demonstrate more technical skills. So far he hasn’t shown much strength in this area.

  10. Effectively a certainty since Checo’s announcement.

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