Gasly: “Quite early” for Red Bull to decide F1 plans for 2022

With Esteban Ocon signing a new three-year deal with Alpine, Gasly’s options for 2022 are fairly limited.

The Frenchman was linked with a switch to Alpine - formerly Renault - but Ocon’s new deal rules out a move to Enstone.

His unsuccessful half-a-season stint with Red Bull in 2019 combined with Sergio Perez’s impressive run of recent races makes a return to the senior team unlikely.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s French Grand Prix, Gasly insisted it’s too early in the season to be discussing his F1 future.

“My future, I think it’s still quite early,” Gasly said in Thursday’s drivers’ press conference at Paul Ricard.

“On my side, things are in the hands of Red Bull. At the end of the day, it will be up to them to make the decision whether we continue together, continue with AlphaTauri, with Red Bull, or other options.

“It’s something that at the moment we haven’t really talked yet. I guess we will see in the coming weeks and the coming months what we want to do.”

In the lead up to this weekend’s race in France, AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost heaped praise on Gasly, labelling him one of the top drivers in the sport. 

After Perez's maiden win for Red Bull in Azerbaijan, team boss Christian Horner says it is in no rush to decide who partners Max Verstappen for 2022.

“I’m really with the job that Checo is doing,” Horner added. “We’re only on race six out of 23, we’ve got plenty of time. He’s enjoying being in the team, he’s doing a great job and he just needs to keep doing what he’s doing.”

Gasly sits eighth in the drivers’ championship on 31 points.