Pierre Gasly says moving from AlphaTauri to Alpine is "such a big change", but one where he feels that "nothing is impossible" thanks to the outfit's manufacturer status.
After a nearly six-year residency in F1 with Red Bull, Gasly opted to leave the energy drink family to answer Alpine's call to replace Fernando Alonso at the Enstone squad where he joins former childhood karting foe Esteban Ocon.
It's a move to a more competitive team for the 27-year-old and, perhaps more importantly, it's a switch to a full works outfit that has all the resources at its disposal to become a title contender in F1.
And that's a big change according to Gasly.
"I’m not going to lie, for me it’s such a big change, big move, closing a chapter of nine years with Red Bull," he said.
"Starting this new project with Alpine and just seeing everything available and all the resources they have, it feels like almost with a manufacturer nothing is impossible.
"There is no limit, no ceiling, which is what I used to have in a way in the past, that’s why I’m extremely excited."
© Alpine F1
Gasly knows that Alpine is still a work in development. This year, the French outfit's minimum target is to retain the fourth position in the Constructors' championship that it achieved last season to the detriment of McLaren, but with a smaller gap to third in terms of points.
The odd incursion among the top-three is possible depending on circumstances, but Gasly knows that on paper Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes will remain out of reach for Alpine.
"The team said they want to sort of consolidate this fourth place in the team championship in a more dominant way, improve the reliability, improve the performance, and close that gap with the top three," Gasly added.
"We know Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, they didn’t sleep over the winter and they’ll come with very fast cars.
"We know what we’ve done, we know we can close the gap, I’m confident in the people we have, the mentality, the processes put in place to be able to show some very good performance.
"But yeah, we have got to wait and see our performance once we put the car on track in Bahrain."
That assessment will come later this week in Bahrain when pre-season testing kicks off with three days of running at Sakhir.
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
