Alpine paid almost £9m to persuade Red Bull to allow Pierre Gasly to rip up his AlphaTauri contract a year early to join the Enstone team, according to a report.
That figure suggests Alpine were keen to finally get a top driver tied down to a contract. And that is no surprise, considering Fernando Alonso chose to leave rather than renew his deal and their preferred replacement, junior Oscar Piastri, preferred a switch to rivals McLaren.
While several other drivers were considered, it was clear that Gasly was their preferred option after they lost their legal battle for Piastri's signature. The stumbling block was whether or not AlphaTauri would allow him to leave, after already announcing he would honour the final year of his Red Bull deal before considering other options.
The deal looked to be in danger after Red Bull's attempts to sign IndyCar racer Colton Herta were thwarted by his ineligibility for an FIA superlicence. But then they turned their attention to Nyck de Vries, and beat Williams to the Dutchman's signature after his impressive F1 debut at Monza.
Still, AlphaTauri wanted compensating for losing Gasly. According to Sky Sports, they made Alpine pay a €10m (£8.8m) fee to allow the 26-year-old to join – and the fact they were willing to shell out that much suggests he was comfortably their preferred choice over some other options who may have cost them nothing.
One of them was Daniel Ricciardo, who will be let go by McLaren at the end of the year. The Aussie has been compensated for agreeing to leave a year earlier than planned, and so Alpine would most likely have been able to sign him without paying a penny in compensation.
But, given the way driver settlements in F1 tend to work, the same might not have been true for Ricciardo himself. He likely has a clause in that deal with McLaren that would mean he would have to repay some or all of his pay-off if he lands another race seat for that season he was due to have with the Woking-based team.
It may well be why Ricciardo told reporters last weekend that he will not be on the grid in 2023. He may well be following the example of Alonso, who took two years out of the sport after leaving McLaren to honour his full garden leave period and not have to pay the team back.
The fact Alpine have paid a large fee to sign Gasly puts extra pressure on the Frenchman to repay that faith. He will already feel the need to get strong results given his first spell at a competitive team, Red Bull, ended after just 12 races as he buckled under the weight of expectation – his soon-to-be new employers will want him to hit the ground running this time.
