Gasly commemorates late Hubert at Alpine: 'That will be great'

Pierre Gasly hopes he can pay tribute to Anthoine Hubert at Alpine. The Frenchman told Motorsport that when signing the contract with Alpine, his thoughts immediately turned to Hubert, who died in 2019.

Hubert became part of the Renault Sport Academy in 2018, Renault's training programme which is better known today as the Alpine Driver Academy. The plan was to eventually get him to Formula 1. Hubert was considered a great talent within the training programme. During the 2019 Formula 2 race in Belgium, Hubert was involved in a serious accident with Juan Manuel Correa. Both drivers were immediately taken to hospital, where Hubert died of his injuries.

During his years in karting and in the FIA's feeder series, Hubert often drove alongside Gasly and Charles Leclerc and became good friends with them. The day after Hubert's death, Leclerc won the Formula 1 race in Belgium, a victory he dedicated to Hubert. Gasly still had regular tributes to Hubert on his car and racing clothes in the period after Hubert's death, and wore a special helmet dedicated to Hubert at the 2020 Belgian Grand Prix.

Four years later, Gasly will compete for the team where Hubert was in the training programme. "I always said it, Anthoine and I always had this dream in common: to reach Formula 1," Gasly explained. "He had his dream of racing with Alpine. If that is something I can achieve in a way that I remember Anthoine more in my life again, that will be great."

Gasly further revealed that he is still in regular contact with Hubert's family. When it was announced that he had been offered a contract at Alpine, he immediately sent a message to Hubert's family to give them the good news.