Gasly upbeat as fleeing McLaren man re-emerges at Alpine

Alpine has confirmed rumours that fleeing Ferrari and McLaren engineer David Sanchez is joining the struggling F1 team.

Last year, the Frenchman left his post as Ferrari’s head of vehicle concept, before re-emerging for 2024 and beyond as technical director at McLaren.

But Sanchez then suddenly left McLaren after just three months in his post, with McLaren explaining that his role "did not align with our original expectations when he agreed to join us".

He is now re-emerging in the F1 paddock yet again, this time to oversee the technical team at Alpine.

"When the (McLaren) announcement was made public, Sanchez had already taken up his new post," the German magazine Auto Motor und Sport reports.

Sanchez began his F1 career as a junior career at Renault’s works team - now called Alpine and at the very rear of the grid - back in 2005 when Fernando Alonso won his first title.

"We have a big task ahead to improve on-track performance and it is this type of challenge that motivates me," he said.

Team boss Bruno Famin added: "It is clear that the performance of the car and development path has not moved at a sufficient pace relative to our ambitions as a team.

"This is a key appointment to ensure we are optimising everything we do as a team and focusing on the right performance areas."

Alpine unveiled a key floor upgrade in China two weeks ago, but only one version of it was available for Esteban Ocon.

His teammate Pierre Gasly said in Miami: "I’m glad that I’m getting a new chassis and the new floor here. They worked exactly as we expected on Esteban’s car and were a step in the right direction."