Franz Tost has confirmed that Pierre Gasly is to remain with AlphaTauri in 2023.

Almost from the moment he returned to Toro Rosso following his dumping by Red Bull, Gasly has shown flashes of the talent that got him noticed in the first place.

However, while continually linked with the 'big team' the move never happened.

Indeed, when Alex Albon was similarly dropped at the end of 2020, rather than turning to Gasly, Helmut Marko went outside the Red Bull 'family' and signed Sergio Perez, and the recent decision to extend the Mexican's contract has slammed the door shut on any potential opening for the Frenchman until 2025 at the earliest.

A number of potential seats have been suggested for Gasly, including McLaren, but AlphaTauri boss, Franz Tost insists he's staying put.

"He will be a driver of us, of Scuderia AlphaTauri, in 2023," said the Austrian at the team principal's press conference. "That is 100 percent confirmed.

"He is showing fantastic performance," he continued. "Unfortunately, at the beginning of the season we had a lot of reliability issues, for example, in Bahrain when the battery caught fire, then there was some other reliability issues was not his fault, it was coming from the team.

"I am really happy now that at least in fact we could show how good he is, and I hope that we will provide him with a competitive car for the rest of the season because Pierre has the ability to be in front.

"It's just in the hands of the team to give him a really good, competitive car."

Asked about talk, in the wake of Perez' re-signing, the Gasly needed to talk to the team, and what it had to do to convince him to remain, Tost's response was short and sweet.

"He has a valid contract, there's nothing more to say."

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