Pierre Gasly hopes to honour Anthoine Hubert with success at Alpine

Joining Alpine, the team Anthoine Hubert was a junior with at the time of his tragic passing, Pierre Gasly hopes to do his friend proud.

Hubert was signed to the Renault Sport Academy in 2018 and went onto win the GP3 Series title with ART Grand Prix, taking two wins and 11 podiums.

Billed as a future Formula 1 star, he stepped up to Formula 2 the following season and won two races before he was tragically killed in a horrific accident on the opening lap of the F2 feature race in Belgium.

Gasly, present at the circuit for the Formula 1 weekend, was devastated by the loss of his good friend and dedicated his 2020 Italian Grand Prix win to the Frenchman.

This season Gasly will race for Alpine, the rebranded Renault team, taking that path that many believed Hubert would have driven.

The 26-year-old hopes to do his friend proud.

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“I knew Anthoine was an Alpine driver, a French driver, he was really liked within the academy,” Gasly told Motorsport.com.

“Between all of us drivers, we knew that Alpine would be quite keen to bring a French driver to the top. And he was on his way to Formula 1.

“Obviously when this [move] happened, it was definitely something I thought about, and about the family. It just felt like quite a nice story to make this move.

“I’ve always said it, we always had this common dream of making it to Formula 1, me and Anthoine. He had his dream to perform with Alpine.

“If it’s something I can achieve in a way to remember Anthoine even more within my life, that would be amazing.”

Gasly revealed he shared the news of his Alpine deal with Hubert’s family, adding: “I have a couple of anecdotes that I’ll mention later, but that I want to share with his Mum.

“It’s definitely something that I carry with me all the time.”

Gasly has previously spoken about the pain of losing his childhood friend.

“He was strict with himself, even at a young age, and I learned a lot of self-discipline from him. After we had been at school for a few years, we were spending most of our time together.

“We’d push each other to be better.

“Anthoine and I had been through so much together. We had shared this path, this journey.

“When he left us, a part of me left, too.”