Pierre Gasly Secures Historic Pole Position at Monza

Pierre Gasly ripped up the form book at Monza, taking a stunning pole position for the Italian Grand Prix and delivering Alpine’s first ever P1 in qualifying in the most unlikely of settings.

On a circuit built for power and heavyweight contenders, it was the Frenchman in a midfield car who found perfection. In his ninth full Formula One season, sitting only 10th in the championship with a team marooned in sixth, Gasly produced a lap of 1min 21.786sec that silenced the paddock and shoved the favourites aside.

Russell beaten, Piastri denied, Gasly unstoppable.

George Russell, armed with a finely choreographed Mercedes slipstream and a car expected to dominate the long Monza straights, thought he had done enough. His 1min 21.929sec looked like the lap that would lock out pole. Oscar Piastri, with a tow from Lando Norris, had pushed him hard. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton lurked, close enough to punish any error. The margins were razor-thin: just seven-hundredths of a second covered the top four after the first Q3 runs.

But the session never belonged to them. It belonged to the driver who has always felt something special at this place.

Gasly’s history at Monza is already marked by that chaotic, opportunistic win in 2020, a victory shaped by a perfectly timed pit stop and a Hamilton penalty. This time there were no gifts. No safety car lottery. Just a driver in form, in a car that had no business fighting for pole, threading a lap that left the heavy hitters staring at the timing screens.

Final Runs

The final runs turned into a high-speed chess match. With the tow so critical on this low-downforce, high-speed strip of tarmac, Mercedes rolled out their plan again: Kimi Antonelli sent out early, running alone, before circling back into position to give Russell the slipstream. McLaren mirrored the strategy, Piastri towing Norris. Ferrari paired Leclerc with Hamilton.

Then it began to fray.

Piastri overcooked it into Turn 1, locking up and blowing any chance Norris had of defending his world champion status from the front of the grid. Hamilton, who had been primed for a late attack, saw his shot at pole disappear with it. Leclerc could not quite stitch his lap together either.

Russell, though, nailed his. With Antonelli punching a hole in the air, the Briton delivered a lap that looked like a banker for pole. Mercedes had executed. The driver had responded. On a track where they expect to be formidable on Sunday, the script seemed to be falling into place.

Then Gasly arrived.

Running in Russell’s wake but with absolute commitment, the Alpine sliced through sector after sector. No mistakes, no hesitation, just a driver leaning on a car that suddenly looked transformed. He crossed the line six-hundredths quicker. A shock on the timing tower, a roar from the pit wall, and a Monza crowd that knows an underdog story when it sees one.

Pole. For Gasly. For Alpine. At Monza.

Behind the headline, the championship story twisted in a different direction. Antonelli, who leads both Russell and Hamilton by 59 points, only qualified seventh on raw pace. It will count for little. A full change of engine components drops him to the back row, Mercedes taking the hit here of all places, trusting Monza’s long straights and heavy braking zones to offer him a route back through the field. Inside the garage, they talk quietly of a recovery to fifth. Russell, starting from the front row, will see a rare chance to slash the gap to his teammate.

Gasly, though, has more than just a grid slot to carry into Sunday. He comes into the race weekend off the back of an extraordinary political storm involving his own team.

Before qualifying, the FIA’s International Court of Appeal issued a pointed and public rebuke after explosive claims from Alpine executive advisor and de facto team principal Flavio Briatore. On Friday, Briatore had suggested that one of the judges who overturned Gasly’s third place at the Monaco Grand Prix was biased in favour of McLaren, who had taken the appeal to the ICA.

He went further, naming the judge and accusing him of acting as a “prosecutor,” questioning why he was “so nasty” and alleging strong links to McLaren. The response was immediate. McLaren principal Andrea Stella branded the remarks “insulting” to his team, and the row spilled into the paddock.

The ICA, which operates independently from the FIA, then pushed back in a detailed statement. It underlined that Alpine had been given every opportunity to challenge the composition of the panel and had not done so.

“At both the beginning and conclusion of the hearing, the parties were invited to raise any issue concerning the proceedings or the composition of the court. None did so. No objection was raised during the hearing concerning the manner in which the court questioned the witness or conducted the proceedings,” the court stated.

It went on to stress that the appointment and conduct of judges followed FIA judicial procedures and common international standards on conflicts of interest. Judges, the ICA noted, must meet independence and confidentiality requirements, file annual disclosures of interest with the FIA compliance officer, and sign a specific declaration of independence for each case, shared with the parties involved.

Against that backdrop, Gasly walked into qualifying with his name at the heart of a legal and political storm he did not start. He responded in the only way a driver can: with a lap that cut through the noise.

Sunday will ask different questions. Mercedes expect to be brutal over a race distance. Russell has a clear run at the front, Hamilton hovers in fifth, and Antonelli will be charging from the back with a fresh power unit and nothing to lose. Piastri, under investigation for impeding Liam Lawson in Q2, still has to clear that hurdle. Norris, starting only ninth, faces a long afternoon.

Gasly has been here before at Monza, standing on the top step. This time, there are no caveats about penalties or pit-lane fortune. He starts from the front on merit, in a car that should not be there.

Now comes the hard part: can he keep it there when the lights go out?