Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko says that there is no clause in Pierre Gasly’s contract that allows him to leave AlphaTauri at the end of 2022.
Gasly’s current deal with the Red Bull family expires at the end of the 2023 campaign, after which he may seek a seat elsewhere on the grid.
The Frenchman joined F1 toward the end of 2017 with Toro Rosso (now AlphaTauri) and completed a full season in 2018 before being promoted to the senior Red Bull squad.
However, after half a season of disappointing performances, Gasly was dropped back to AlphaTauri, where he remains today.
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A seat at Alpine has opened up for next year, after Fernando Alonso recently provided a shock announcement that he would depart Alpine for Aston Martin.
Gasly has been linked with a move to the team, as has current McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo.
However, Marko says that there is no option in Gasly’s contract that will allow the 2020 Italian Grand Prix winner to leave the Red Bull squad.
“There is no exit clause [for] Gasly,” Marko told Sport1. “There was none before the summer break and there will be none after the summer break.”
The identity of Gasly’s team-mate at AlphaTauri next year is not yet known, with Yuki Tsunoda out of contract at the end of the year.
Should Gasly want to wait to return to Red Bull in the future, he would have to wait until the end of the 2024 campaign for his earliest opportunity, when Sergio Perez’s deal expires at the team.
What Gasly must assess is whether his chances of obtaining a title-challenging car at Alpine (or Renault or whatever else it may call itself) are better than his chances of getting into the Red Bull after Perez vacates it at some point. The answer to this question is obvious, so he should stay at Alpha Tauri, unless and until he receives a proposition to which the answer is different.