Pierre Gasly Dismisses Valtteri Bottas-to-Alpine Rumours as “A Lot of Noise”

Pierre Gasly has downplayed rumours linking Mercedes reserve driver Valtteri Bottas to Alpine as “a lot of noise,” urging the French team to focus on the work ahead rather than speculation. Speaking during the British Grand Prix weekend, Gasly stressed the importance of concentrating on improving the team’s performance amid a challenging season.

Alpine, based in Enstone, have already made changes to their driver lineup this year, replacing Jack Doohan with Franco Colapinto from Round 7 in Imola onwards. Recent reports revealed that Alpine had also enquired about Bottas’s availability should they consider further changes either this season or in the future.

With Alpine currently sitting at the bottom of the Teams’ Championship with 19 points—10 points behind ninth-placed Haas—Gasly was asked whether adding an experienced driver like Bottas could provide a useful benchmark. The 29-year-old was clear in his response: “I don’t think that’s the case. I think it’s a lot of noise. I think the car, I’m showing every weekend what we can do with it, doing a very good job on Saturdays and putting it in places that on paper we all agree we should not really be.”

He added, “It’s just tricky, it’s a very tight midfield and we are at the back of it. There will always be noise, especially considering what happened earlier in the year, but I think at the end of the day we should just focus on the work ahead. It’s going to be a long season. We don’t have upgrades, the car is not in the best place, but all of us need to focus on what we’ve got to do and try and do it the best way that we can.”

When pressed on whether the car is the main issue rather than the drivers, Gasly acknowledged the razor-thin margins across the midfield. “It’s easy to make it sound more dramatic than it is,” he explained. “I think it’s just a very tough field. You look a couple of years back, being eight [or] nine-tenths off the fastest car would put you sixth, seventh on the grid. This year being eight [or] nine-tenths slower than the fastest car puts you on the back row.”

He continued, “I think everyone has done a very good job, we know the strengths and weaknesses of our package. We don’t have the strongest car, we don’t have the strongest engine – both combined doesn’t put us in a very good spot. But I see a lot of good stuff happening in the team in terms of trying to get the maximum we can.”

Gasly concluded by highlighting Alpine’s focus on the future: “We know the focus is on 2026 and it comes with some compromises on this year, which are tough to take, but hopefully we see the dividends next year.”