Alpine keen to exploit Gasly's 'technical leadership'

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Alpine boss Laurent Rossi hopes Pierre Gasly will continue to assume with his new team the role of "technical leader" he endorsed during several seasons at AlphaTauri.

Alpine is relying on Gasly's talent to compliment the skills of incumbent Esteban Ocon and strengthen the Enstone squad.

But Gasly's experience is also an indisputable asset that can help the team eventually extract itself from F1's midfield and bridge the gap with the sport's leading outfits.

For several seasons at AlphaTauri, Gasly was the sister bull squad's default leader alongside young apprentice Yuki Tsunoda, a period during which he took a hands-on approach to the development of the Italian team's cars.

And Rossi is more than happy to have Alpine benefit from his new driver's experience.

"Hopefully he’s going to bring what we need, which is to continue developing the car, because at the moment, we are still pretty much in the midfield and we need to take the car a notch up," said Rossi.

"For that, you need drivers that are not only capable only to go fast and score points with the potential the car gives us, but also to take it to the next level.

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"That means that you need to, as of Friday [practice], to be able to give feedback to the team and take the whole team in the right direction so the car improves.

"So that's what Pierre, we hope, is going to bring.

"I mean, he was the technical leader in many ways, I guess, at AlphaTauri. We want him to continue doing that, grow the team, grow himself with us and take us to a new level."

Gasly, who was promoted to a seat in F1 by Red Bull in the closing stages of 2017, heads into his sixth full season as a Grand Prix driver.

Overall, the 26-year-old Frenchman has scored three podiums in F1, all of which were with AlphaTauri, with the high point of his career coming in 2020 at Monza where Gasly clinched his maiden Grand Prix win.

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Michael Delaney