Alpine are reported to have been asked to pay €10 million to acquire the services of Pierre Gasly from AlphaTauri in 2023.
The French team entered the season with Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon as their full-time drivers, and Oscar Piastri as reserve.
The Spaniard was out of contract at the end of 2022, so team principal, Otmar Szafnauer, was trying to negotiate a new deal that would keep him there until the end of next year.
To an extent, that was down to his age, and depending on how next year went, the 41-year-old would then be kept on for 2024.
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But he felt his performances warranted a straight two-year deal, so when he did not get one, he started negotiating with Aston Martin, whose four-time champion driver, Sebastian Vettel, is retiring at the end of this year.
Piastri was unsure how long it would take for him to be given a drive with the Enstone-based team, but they still wanted to keep him as part of their system until the start of 2025, when Alonso would likely leave.
The 21-year-old did not want to race on loan at Williams next season, so he signed a deal with McLaren to replace Daniel Ricciardo.
This left Alpine in need of a driver, and they turned to Gasly, who is part of Red Bull’s junior team, AlphaTauri.
The French driver had a contract with Red Bull until the end of 2023, so Alpine needed to negotiate a deal with Red Bull to pry him away.
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The move was also dependent on AlphaTauri finding a new driver for next season, and having been unsuccessful in their attempts to sign Colton Herta, they captured Nyck de Vries.
The Dutchman has signed from the Mercedes programme and, after such an impressive debut in Italy with Williams, he caught the attention of Dr Helmut Marko.
The price, according to Sky Sports, was set at €10 million, adding to the money Alpine are already paying in legal fees to McLaren after they fought Piastri’s signature with the British side.