Pierre Gasly says he’s done his “fair share of the job” of trying to convince outgoing Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz to join Alpine.
Despite Alpine’s struggles and lacklustre season, Gasly has doubled down on his commitment to the Enstone squad, having recently extended his contract on a multi-year basis.
But the departure at the end of the year of his current teammate Esteban Ocon leaves a seat to fill, and Sainz as a prime candidate targeted by Alpine’s recently appointed executive advisor Flavio Briatore.
While the Spaniard could be a key piece of Alpine’s puzzle, the three-time Grand Prix winner is hot property, with Mercedes, Williams and Sauber-Audi also considering Sainz’s services.
“I did my fair share of the job,” Gasly revealed in Hungary on Thursday.
“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.”
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Gasly added that, in addition to Sainz, Alpine has several “good options on the table”, although the 29-year-old emphasized that he doesn't have a say in who will be his teammate.
“At the end of the day, it’s not up to me,” he added. “I welcome the fastest guy out there. We all know who it is.
“At the moment we’ve got to wait. But the team has three good options.”
Unfortunately, last time out at Silverstone, Gasly failed to make it onto the grid following a gearbox issue that emerged on the formation lap of the British Grand Prix.
“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.”
Alpine currently sits P8 in Formula 1’s Constructors’ standings, having lost a position to Haas which enjoyed a solid run of points in Austria and in Great Britain.
“We haven’t really developed over the last few races,” explained Gasly. “So we know how to maximise it, obviously others like Haas, for example, are making quite big steps forward.
“It’s so tight in that midfield that it kind of reshuffles the order every time a team brings a new part.
“So I think we know we’ve got to try, it’s not easy to score points until we get new upgrades on the car which hopefully will put us a bit more in the fight.”
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