Pierre Gasly is stuck* with Alpine for 2025

Well someone had to, didn’t they? Pierre Gasly has taken one for the team and signed a ‘long-term’ contract extension that will keep him at Alpine into 2025 ‘and beyond’. Poor bloke.

The British-French team has been bearing the brunt of some woeful management choices this season, kicking off 2024 with the slowest car on the grid having fired its CEO, the team principal, the sporting director and a host of other key personnel in 2023.

To add to its problems, its driver line-up of Gasly and Esteban Ocon - who were paired together despite not getting along very well - have… not been getting along very well. The duo collided in Monaco, hastening the announcement that Ocon would leave the team at the end of the season.

And just last week, Alpine announced that it had hired Flavio Briatore as an advisor. This has raised eyebrows throughout the sport, as the last time Briatore worked for the Renault-owned team, it was caught fixing the result of the Singapore Grand Prix and it retreated from F1 for sheer corporate embarrassment. Briatore has always denied being involved.

Anyway, with the team showing vague signs of recovery (it scored double points in Canada and Spain), it has locked down Gasly for next season and his new teammate will be confirmed ‘in due course’.

Gasly has 140 F1 starts to his name and one race win; that epic victory at Monza four years ago.

“I feel very much at home at this great team,” said Gasly. “I enjoy being a real part of both the Formula 1 project and the wider Alpine Cars vision. I’ve been officially here for over 18 months and it has always been the plan to build a long-term project with the team. While on-track it’s been a challenging season so far, I remain faithful to the project and I am not going anywhere. I am happy with the changes made, the hard work, and the direction the team is taking.

“There is a lot of potential in this team’s personnel and resources. I’m excited for what is to come in the future and right now I’m focusing on the everyday details that we are putting in to improve our performances.”

And team principal Bruno Famin added: “The extension of Pierre’s contract with the team is very pleasing. He is a driver with huge experience in Formula 1 and continues to show huge amounts of potential on-track. For Alpine as a brand, he is a great ambassador and we therefore look forward to continuing our collaboration.

"While this is important for our future, we do have to keep our eyes close to what is coming and that is focusing on improving our current package. We have high ambitions this current season and we will work tirelessly to achieve those things. We will take our time in deciding Pierre’s team-mate and we are excited with the options we have on the table.”

Those options being… any driver desperate enough to keep their F1 career alive, or reserve driver Jack Doohan. Who would you put in the seat? Assuming you could convince them, of course…