Pierre Gasly says he has done what he can to persuade Carlos Sainz Jnr to join Alpine next year.
The Ferrari driver will leave his current team at the end of this season to make way for Lewis Hamilton. Alpine has recently emerged as a potential destination for Gasly as Esteban Ocon will part ways with them at the end of 2024.
The team has made a poor start to the season and lies eighth in the constructors’ standings. There are rumours Renault may give up on its Formula 1 power unit programme and the team will become a customer of one of its rivals.
However Gasly has recently extended his contract to drive for them and said he has encouraged Sainz to join him there. “I did my fair share of the job,” he said in today’s FIA press conference.
“Ultimately I believe in the project we’re building with Alpine. I always backed the team up, now it’s up to him to make his own decision.”
Sainz and Ocon are one of many free agents for next year. Haas confirmed today it will part ways with Kevin Magnussen at the end of the season, and Nico Hulkenberg’s impending move to Sauber means either Valtteri Bottas or Zhou Guanyu will have to leave that team.
Gasly said Alpine “has good options on the table” for his next team mate. “At the end of the day, it’s not up to me. I welcome the fastest guy out there. We all know who it is.
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“At the moment we’ve got to wait. But the team has three good options.”
Alpine endured a poor weekend at Silverstone where Ocon failed to score and Gasly retired on the first lap with a gearbox problem. He only completed a token run in qualifying as he had a power unit penalty for the race.
“We didn’t get a real picture of the performance there,” he admitted. “Obviously qualifying was in mixed conditions, I didn’t take part in it and I didn’t even take part in the race.
“So on paper from the free practice I did 15 laps the whole weekend. It seemed to be slightly more difficult, the track with all these long straights and the efficiency you need on the power and the aero side maybe didn’t favour our package, but I still think there would have been a chance to do something. It was just a shame not to be able to race.”
The team has seen rivals Haas overtake it in the championship and pull well ahead over the past two races. “We haven’t really developed over the last few races,” said Gasly. “So we know how to maximise it, obviously others…
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