Formula One team AlphaTauri confirmed on Saturday that Pierre Gasly would continue with the team in 2023, despite not having had a good season thus far.

The Frenchman managed just 16 points this season, but recorded his best result of the season thus far in Azerbaijan after managing a top-five finish.

However, the 26-year-old fuelled speculation about his future after the race when he said that he wanted to race for wins, not just points.

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That speculation has now been put to rest by AlphaTauri team principal Franz Tost.

“He [Gasly] will be a driver of us, of Scuderia AlphaTauri, in 2023. This is 100% confirmed,” Tost confirmed to media ahead of Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix.

Tost went on to say that it was up to AlphaTauri to provide the 26-year-old with a competitive car, stressing that Gasly’s results had been hampered by misfortune this season.

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“Unfortunately, at the beginning of the season [he suffered] with a lot of reliability issues – for example, in Bahrain when the battery caught fire,” Tost told the media.

“Then there were some other reliability issues that were not his fault, it was coming from the team. I am really happy now that at least in Baku 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 in the hands of the team to give him a really good competitive car,” the AlphaTauri boss added.

Gasly made his Formula One debut with Toro Rosso at the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix before moving to Red Bull Racing in 2019. The 26-year-old briefly returned to Toro Rosso the same year before joining AlphaTauri, with whom he recorded his first victory at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix.