Alpine set to confirm Gasly contract extension

Pierre Gasly looks set to definitely stay with the embattled Alpine team beyond 2024.

His teammate Esteban Ocon will not be offered a new contract for 2025, but the authoritative French sports daily L’Equipe confidently exclaims: "Pierre Gasly will extend with Alpine.

"He will be reappointed on Thursday to the team that welcomed him at the start of 2023," said correspondent Frederic Ferret, writing from the scene of the weekend’s Austrian GP.

Ferret believes Gasly’s new deal is for more than a single year, meaning he will remain with the struggling Enstone based team into the new rules era beginning in 2026.

Much more uncertain, however, is whether Gasly - who L’Equipe believes may well be joined by current Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz - will still be Renault-powered in 2026.

Rumours are building that the team’s former ultra-successful boss Flavio Briatore has been brought in by Renault as ’executive advisor’ to CEO Luca de Meo to oversee Enstone’s split with the engine division in Viry-Chatillon.

The Finnish newspaper Ilta Sanomat thinks that could ultimately lead to the sale of the chassis-making side of the team - including the official F1 entry - to Andretti-Cadillac.

Amid its abysmal performance so far in 2024, Alpine performed surprisingly well in Barcelona, baffling team engineers who had not added a single upgrade to the car.

Within an article entitled "How can the Alpine miracle be explained?" in Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport, Gasly said: "I fought for a long time with a McLaren and a Red Bull and only lost eighth to (Sergio) Perez on the last lap."

Team boss Bruno Famin said: "We have to understand how this happened because we could benefit from the findings in the next races."