Alpine lived a real roller coaster last summer. He lived it by his own decisions, since they went from having, or believing that they had, Fernando Alonso and Oscar Piastri, plus Esteban Ocon, by 2023 to staying only with the Frenchman after the departure of the Asturian to Aston Martin and the goodbye of the Australian, who headed for McLaren. Despite not having a pair of drivers, the head of the team was negotiating the arrival of a rider… for another team.
It was, on this occasion, for AlphaTauri. The reason, Pierre Gasly, who was finally chosen from among the shortlist of drivers who had in mind to get into the blue car. And it is that Otmar Szafnauer, Alonso’s boss, was negotiating the signing of Colton Herta for those of Faenza.
This has been recognized in words published by ‘Motorsport.com’: “I had to go to the United States and negotiate with Bryan Herta regarding the release of Colton’s contract.”
“I ate with them. It was because Red Bull needed a replacement for Gasly. In case it didn’t, he was not going to be able to sign for Alpine”, insists.
And it is that the negotiations with AlphaTauri were in that sense: “I contacted Franz to see if they could release Gasly. He told me no. I told him ok, that’s great, that I was happy to hear that.”
“The last thing you want is that they tell you that they seek to get rid of it. They didn’t want to lose him, and I told them if they could call Helmut Marko to see if he had a different perspective.”
