Twitter can be a strange but wonderful place sometimes, especially when it comes to the F1 community, with Pierre Gasly being announced as an Alpine driver being no exception.
Whilst it has been reported countless times over recent weeks that Gasly was set to take Fernando Alonso’s place at Alpine, people were beginning to wonder when it would be officially confirmed.
Ahead of this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, Canal Plus announced that they believed Gasly’s move to the Enstone-based team would be confirmed during the weekend, something which has proven to be true.
Prior to FP3, it was confirmed by Alpine that they’d signed AlphaTauri driver Gasly on a multi-year deal, with the Faenza-based team also announcing that Mercedes reserve Nyck de Vries would be replacing the Frenchman.
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Somewhat hilariously, it had basically been confirmed by a very different source, famous football journalist Fabrizio Romano, who is well known for announcing player transfers using his effectively trademarked phrase “Here we go”.
On Friday 4pm BST, Romano announced that he’d heard that Gasly had signed for Alpine, something the team confirmed themselves prior to FP3 as mentioned.
Romano tweeted the news whilst it was midnight at the Suzuka International Racing Course, yet it was soon discovered that a number of the teams’ admins were wide awake rather than fast asleep.
Aston Martin retweeted the comment with a picture of Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll looking in shock whilst looking at a phone, whilst Mercedes initially replied by saying “Here we go, go, go”, replicating Romano’s phrase but with an F1 twist.
Mercedes’ actually went on to comment to a reply of theirs, which said “admin, why aren’t you sleeping?”, to which the Silver Arrows replied by admitting they were “just here for the drama”.
Mercedes’ response has currently received just over 8,500 likes, 213 quote retweets and 335 retweets, demonstration of how well people reacted to the Germans response.
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Drama there will most likely be at Alpine next season, with it widely rumoured that Gasly and Ocon do not get on.
The pair did actually grow up together and raced with one another in their karting days; however, their relationship diminished as they progressed through the junior ranks, with ex-F1 driver Ralf Schumacher believing their rivalry to be because Gasly supposedly stole Ocon’s girlfriend.
Whilst it sounds like playground antics, it’ll be a fascinating partnership to see develop next season, the question is whether they’ll flourish as team-mates or clash like rivals.