Pierre Gasly takes blunt stance on Valtteri Bottas to Alpine ‘noise’

Pierre Gasly does not believe that Alpine would benefit from another experienced driver in the form of Valtteri Bottas alongside him.

Instead, he urges his Alpine team not to bother with that “noise” and “focus on the work ahead”, as the Enstone squad battle to escape to escape the foot of the Constructors’ standings.

Is Valtteri Bottas to Alpine ‘noise’ they don’t need?

F1 2025 is the final season of works team status for Alpine, but the Renault power era risks going out on a sombre note. The team has collected 19 points across the opening 12 rounds – all courtesy of Pierre Gasly – who scored just his and Alpine’s third top 10 result of the season last time out at Silverstone, crossing the line in P6.

Meanwhile Jack Doohan, followed by Franco Colapinto, have failed to score in the sister Alpine, leading to speculation that Alpine could turn to 10-time grand prix winner Valtteri Bottas, who is currently Mercedes’ reserve driver after losing his Sauber seat.

Gasly – considering he has done all the points scoring this year for Alpine – was quizzed on the Bottas rumours and whether he would be a handy benchmark for Alpine to place on the other side of the garage.

His response did not suggest a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” he responded, as per the Formula 1 website.

“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.

“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.”

And Gasly believes there is plenty of it to come.

“It’s going to be a long season,” he predicted. “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.”

Latest F1 2025 head-to-head standings from PlanetF1.com

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff recently confirmed Alpine’s interest in Bottas, with Colapinto now into a period of race-by-race evaluations in the second seat.

But, Wolff confirmed that he is taking a hands-off approach to the situation.

Asked by Viaplay at Silverstone if he has spoken to Alpine executive advisor Flavio Briatore about Bottas joining, Wolff replied: “A few times, actually.

“I saw him today and we talked about Valtteri. It seems that the interest in Valtteri is increasing even more.

“He deserves that seat. If someone grabs him as a race driver, we’ll let him go. Of course, with a tear in the corner of our eye.

“Ultimately, I give him advice as a friend. Valtteri ultimately makes the choice with his management.

“I try to stay in the background.”

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