The intent revealed in Gasly's Alpine switch that his F1 rivals should heed

“The first thing that stood out for me when I came to Faenza, it was the fact that there were all these pictures of Seb Vettel’s victory in Monza in the staircase as you walk up,” recalls Pierre Gasly of his first visit to the headquarters of what was then Toro Rosso. “Walking up,
 I remember I was making videos and stories 
for my social media, and someone said to me, ‘Oh, Sebastian! Numero uno.’ And I replied at the time, ‘He is the best. But hopefully there will be pictures of me in five years on this staircase.’”

Five years on, the second most important flight of stairs at the team’s Faenza base is a gallery with photos of Pierre Gasly. Photos likewise taken at Monza, also of a win for the team. However the rest of the Frenchman’s career goes, he is already one of the small Scuderia’s defining drivers, along with Vettel. After all, even world champion Max Verstappen – who made his grand prix debut with Toro Rosso – doesn’t have his own flight of stairs in Faenza. “Max didn’t win for us – he left one race too early,” is a favourite quip of team boss Franz Tost’s about this.

“Actually, it wasn’t five – it took me three years before I won and had my staircase with the pictures of my race win,” smiles Pierre. “But it’s funny, because I remember I was very impressed. Because I saw Seb’s pictures and I was like,
 ‘Wow, this is possible.’ OK, when I arrived in 2017 it [Vettel’s Monza win] was nine years in the past, but it’s like... there’s still history in this team. And they have won.

“Now to have my own one is something special... Obviously, every time going through these images always gives me goosebumps, it’s a nice way to remember the emotion. So it’s a great touch. And also a nice story with me kind of telling myself that I want my own gallery
here in five years. And, then in the end it came even faster than that.”

It is the end of an era. Gasly, unlike Vettel, couldn’t get a foothold at Red Bull, although his trophy cabinet with the Faenza team is bigger, since it also includes a pair of podiums. But next season he will race for a different team, no longer in the Red Bull family, which means another return to Faenza is practically impossible.

“In a way, it is...” he begins to speak on his departure from the team, before cutting himself short. “No, let’s say I’m extremely excited with what’s coming in the future.

Gasly scored his breakthrough win with AlphaTauri at Monza in 2020, but now bids the team farewell as he heads to Alpine

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

“It was a decision that is well thought, it’s not a decision you take overnight. But at the same time, yeah, 90%
of my entire time in Formula 1 has been with 
this team. And every single mechanic, every engineer, people from marketing, the relationship we’ve built over these years goes beyond just a working relationship.

“I will miss a lot of people from this team.
I know their kids, I know the personal life of most 
of the people here. It gets very personal, so... 
I will clearly miss these guys.”

It’s also the end of Gasly’s nearly decade-long journey with Red Bull. His contract was only expiring at the end of 2023, and Red Bull made a point of repeatedly confirming him as an AlphaTauri driver for next season. But it let him go to Alpine in the end, once the Enstone team contrived to lose both Fernando Alonso and Oscar Piastri. As Gasly sees it, Red Bull granted his move because he’d stayed loyal to the programme even in difficult times.

"[Alpine] definitely pushed really hard, and really made me understand that they wanted this to happen more than anything else. And there were long conversations on knowing where the team stands, what their ambitions are" Pierre Gasly

“I don’t think many drivers stayed for that many years within Red Bull,” he says. “And what we’ve experienced together, having been fighting all my seasons in younger categories for championships, for wins. And I’ll be forever grateful for the opportunity they gave me before F1 and also within Formula 1.

“But ultimately they want drivers to come and kind of move up to Red Bull. This was the strategy at the start. And then also my ambition – you want to be in Formula 1 to win. I don’t know anyone... or I’d be surprised if someone says they’re going to F1 to do top 10s. At the end of the day personally it’s not what interests me in this sport.

“Helmut [Marko] and I, we had conversations at the start of the year, he wasn’t keen to let me go. And I know they wanted to keep me, they made me understand I’m a key player within the AlphaTauri organisation, and the brand itself, not just in Formula 1. The fact that I like fashion can really relate to what they do and their industry, and they were also not keen on letting me go.

“And then the whole thing happened in August [when Sebastian Vettel’s retirement announcement triggered a series of moves],
 it changed the market for the next few years quite a lot. And then we had more conversations with Helmut, and I’m also thankful that he understood this is an important opportunity. I told him, ‘Look, I really want to take this on, grab this opportunity and sort of move away because it’s no secret that Red Bull is closed over the next few years.’ And he understood that...”

Gasly enjoyed his first running in Alpine colours in the Abu Dhabi rookie test

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Gasly admits sealing the deal wasn’t easy. Marko’s stipulation was that Pierre would 
only be released if American driver Colton 
Herta could be signed in his place – which 
proved tricky, since the FIA then ruled Herta ineligible for a superlicence.

“It was a complex deal,” the Frenchman 
laughs, nodding towards manager Guillaume 
Le Goff, who has joined us at the table. “It wasn’t straightforward. Obviously he [Marko] wanted a replacement, and he was quite direct on who he wanted. But at the end of the day, we managed 
to make a win-win deal everybody was happy with.

“For sure, I’m grateful. And I think 
he recognised exactly that, over the last nine years I’ve always played the best way 
I could within the 
Red Bull organisation and, out of these nine years, eight and a half have been extremely successful and enjoyable. There have been experiences and lessons as 
well. I’ll just remember the good times from 
these past almost 10 years.”

There aren’t that many teams on the grid, Gasly points out, who could have made a sufficiently attractive offer for him to consider 
an exit from Faenza a year before the expiry 
of his contract.

“I mean behind the top three, that’s definitely at the moment the best team,” he says of Alpine, “and to me from what I’m seeing with the new regulations, the budget cap, they’re closing the gap with these guys. They recruited a very strong technical team. And for me, they have all the resources, facilities and tools and people to become, again, a very successful team, because they have been in the past. It’s important, I think, to remember what they’ve achieved in the past.

“They know what it takes to be fighting at the front. Since they came back [as Renault’s factory team], it’s taking time because it’s such a difficult sport. It’s not like you can just be here and straightaway tackle Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, but they have this ambition and are putting in full effort to do it. That’s what they’ve showed with me, that they’re really willing to make this team successful and, to me, it was important to feel this drive and this anger for success.”

But it was just as important for Gasly that
 from the beginning it was him heading the 
Alpine shortlist, once the team realised it
 would have to look for Esteban Ocon’s next
 team-mate outside its current pool of drivers. That it didn’t see his existing contract as an impediment to negotiations suggests he was 
at or near the top of that list.

Gasly will join Ocon to form an all-French lineup at Alpine in 2023

Photo by: Alpine

“Over the past 20 or 30 years, I don’t think 
it’s happened very often in F1, that a driver
 with a contract gets traded to another team,” he says. “They [Alpine] definitely pushed really hard, and really made me understand that they wanted this to happen more than anything else. And there were long conversations on knowing where the team stands, what their ambitions are, their targets over the next few years, who they have recruited.

PLUS: How Alpine's no-nonsense boss is leading its ascent towards F1 success

“It’s a big change. I already had something secured, and then leaving something I know to take on a new challenge... But once I talked with them, it was really clear this was the next step in my career, and I wanted to grab it with both hands.
I saw a big potential there to have great success. So it just came naturally, quite quickly.”

It really is a big step for Gasly. There are obviously more wins in the team’s history than flights of stairs over at Enstone, and it will be a tough ask for Pierre to become one of its defining drivers. And, as it stands, the team isn’t yet in a position to seriously challenge for victories.

"What I’ve done in Formula 1 so far, OK, it’s great, but it’s nowhere near what I want to do. I had one win, I had three podiums, it’s not bad... But is it good enough for me? Not at all. It is nothing yet" Pierre Gasly

Since Red Bull’s junior team exists to promote young talent, it’s a relative rarity in F1: a team whose brand isn’t predicated on winning, although it will happily accept them. Moving
to Alpine is Pierre’s best route to defining a
career in which he will be remembered for
much more than that opportunist Monza
victory in 2020. But the question of legacy 
isn’t one that concerns Gasly much right now.

“At the moment I’m not thinking that far because, in my opinion, I haven’t completed 15% of my career,” he says. “What I’ve done in Formula 1 so far, OK, it’s great, but it’s nowhere near what I want to do. I had one win, I had three podiums, it’s not bad... But is it good enough for me? Not at all. It is nothing yet.

“So for now I’m more focused on actually delivering and getting the success that I’m eyeing in Formula 1, and just focusing on these. Once these successes will happen probably later on in my career, I’ll think about the legacy and what I leave behind.

“At the moment, I haven’t achieved anything in F1 yet. Everything is going to happen over the next five to eight years. And this was more like a development base, construction phase and now... Yeah, now it’s time to get the proper results.”

Gasly has high hopes for his time with Alpine and believes it can help him achieve his career goals

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images