AlphaTauri has announced the retention of Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda for the 2022 F1 season ahead of their home grand prix at Monza.
After Sergio Perez was confirmed at Red Bull for 2022 F1 season alongside Max Verstappen, AlphaTauri has announced the retention of both Gasly and Tsunoda for their second season together, ahead of this weekend’s Italian GP at Monza.
This will be Gasly’s fourth full year in Red Bull’s junior/sister team, aside the two times he ran for nearly half of them, while for Tsunoda, it will be his second full season. Despite Red Bull’s wish to find a seat for Alexander Albon, it was unlikely AlphaTauri was the place.
The team were looking for stability, especially with Gasly as their leader and Tsunoda to step up after his first year experience. “I am very happy to be moving forward with Scuderia AlphaTauri for another season in Formula 1, especially after seeing the progress that we’ve made as a team since I first joined in 2017,” said the Frenchman.
“Seeing the performance we’ve shown so far this season, I think there are great things to achieve for the rest of this season and for next year, especially with the upcoming changes to the championship in 2022. I’m very excited to see what we can accomplish in the new era of F1 and to keep working with the team as best as I can to bring us forward in the team standings. This year has been very successful so far and I really believe we can work well together to do even better in 2022.”
At the same time, Tsunoda, added: “I’m really excited to be staying with Scuderia AlphaTauri for a second season. It’s an incredible opportunity and I’m so thankful to the team for letting me continue to grow my experience in Formula 1 with them. I have a very good relationship with Pierre.
“I have learnt a lot from him already this year and his experience has helped me to keep developing my own skills, so it’s great to be continuing my F1 journey with him. Having recently moved out to Faenza I am feeling very settled within the team and am looking forward to the upcoming season.”
And finally, Franz Tost, stated: “I’m pleased to announce today that we will keep both our drivers here at Scuderia AlphaTauri for the 2022 season. Pierre’s development in the years has been impressive and in his time with us he managed to make it to all three steps of the podium. Starting with the second place in Brazil in 2019, he then won our home Grand Prix the following year in Monza and this year he has already achieved a podium with a 3rd place in Baku.
“I am confident there’s more to come and this is why we are excited to have him with us for another season. Furthermore, he is using his experience in F1 to help Yuki with his development. This year we have seen that the positive relationship between the two, made of a competitiveness on-track and a friendship off-track, has proven effective for the team.
“Yuki has joined the team as a rookie and is continuing to learn every day, the feedback from the engineers shows that he is absorbing all the information given to him and improving. As a rookie, Yuki is only at the beginning of this journey, so it’s good that he can continue what we’ve started together. It’s great for us to be securing our driver line-up so early in the season, so we can now focus on the rest of 2021, where we’re in a tough fight in the midfield pack.”
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