Alpine “In No Rush” To Announce Their 2025 Driver Line-Up

Contracts of both Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly with the BWT Alpine F1 Team expire at the end of 2024 — as well as around three quarters of the whole grid. With the team’s current struggles, one would think the French team won’t have a very popular place on the driver’s market. However, Alpine’s team principal Bruno Famin doesn’t seem too worried about it:

“We have a wide scope of possibility. We are happy with Esteban, happy with Pierre – but we are ready to react in case something happens. That’s it.”

The two men driving for Alpine didn’t have a great start to the season, both scoring zero points in the four races we’ve had so far. Plus, Ocon and Gasly are not exactly known for being best friends. In 2023, they had multiple crashes and in Japan this year, the teammates made contact with each other as well — which definitely didn’t help their performance at the Grand Prix.

But still, Famin insists: “We are happy with our drivers, and our drivers are happy with us. We are talking to them regularly. Let’s see what we can do in the future. There are ups and downs, we are in a down, but we have a strong project with a long term vision.”

“We have a project which doesn’t need to convince them [to stay]. I would like to use this opportunity to thank them. We are in a difficult position. It is not the start of the season we wanted and I appreciate how constructive they are with the team, not only in communications with journalists but also internally. When trying to find solutions with the car, both of them are very helpful.”

Apart from the present drivers, there are more options to choose from — as does the team principal say himself: “We are also looking at the market and we also have our academy where we are developing talents for tomorrow or the future. We have Jack Doohan who is our reserve, Victor Martins in F2.”

It’ll be interesting to see things evolve and I’m curious in which direction Alpine will choose to go at the end. After all, there are multiple great drivers available and out of contract, as well as many new young talents eager to get their chance in Formula 1.

However, it seems like we’ll have to wait for the final decision, because Alpine isn’t planning on making announcements any time soon. Famin added: “We are not in a rush right now to be frank. We have other problems to solve, other things to improve, and we are not in a rush. We are ready, we are prepared but we are not in rush.”