Pierre Gasly’s Long Walk To Freedom, Red Bull Captivity Ends, Alpine F1 Hailed As Heroes

Pierre Gasly is finally free from the evil clutches of the Red Bull empire after being offered a pathway to freedom with exile at the Alpine F1 team. Gasly will race for Alpine in 2023 on a multi-year contract alongside fellow Frenchman Esteban Ocon. Gasly’s seven-year incarceration with the Red Bull empire has been the making and breaking of his career. Gasly has shown he can dig his way out of a tunnel, only to be halted by the infernal machinations of Mad Dog Helmut Marko. Gasly’s time at Red Bull seemed to have taken a turn for the worst when he began identifying with his captors, clearly, he was suffering from the phenomenon medically known as Stockholm Syndrome.

However, unknown to most, Gasly was planning an audacious escape from his Red Bull prison making assertions he knew not when his captivity with Red Bull would end. But ended it has, for now, Gasly can breathe clean air as a free man with his Red Bull dark days well and truly left behind. It will take time for Gasly to adjust to his new environment, the world has changed much in seven years, but if anyone can Gasly is the… man… to do it.

Gasly has the speed and temperament but lacks the ability to show both at the same time every race weekend. He has to be better than his predecessors if he wants race for wins and challenge for championship honors. He also needs a car to enable him to do so. Consistency matters, of course, all drivers will have an off weekend, it’s the nature of the F1 beast. However, winning races requires another level of performance, the ability to step up an extra gear when the car has had enough. Does Gasly have that ability?

Gasly’s replacement will be Nyck de Vries who made such an impact at the Italian Grand Prix after substituting for the ill Alex Albon at Williams. De Vries showed he had the speed and temperament, barely put a foot wrong all weekend, and scored 2 points on his debut. This caught the attention of hard-to-please and difficult-to-work-with Mad Dog Helmut Marko. De Vries was confirmed as a 2023 Alfa Tauri driver over the course of the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix weekend.

But Red Bull did manage to claim a victim, out of favor Daniel Riccardo is all but certain to be without a drive in 2023 as all the seats are mostly taken. And let’s be honest, while Hass has yet to confirm its driver lineup, driving for such a team in its current state is a backward step for a high-caliber driver such as Riccardo.

Nevertheless, Gasly is now free from Red Bull, Nyck de Vries is possibly a victim in the making and Riccardo is just another disposable Red Bull asset lost and wondering to himself “how did this situation happen to me?”