Gasly very satisfied as Alpine holds its own against F1 front-runners at Monza

Gasly puts Monza result into perspective

Pierre Gasly has described Alpine’s Italian Grand Prix performance as a positive step, despite slipping from a shock pole position to seventh at the chequered flag.

Gasly made a strong launch and led the opening lap, but George Russell passed the Alpine on the run to Turn 1 on lap two. The pole-sitter then became part of a high-profile fight involving Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s McLarens, as well as Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari.

A realistic assessment of Alpine’s race pace

Gasly accepted that seventh was likely the strongest result available once the race pace of the leading teams became clear. The key positive, in his view, was Alpine’s ability to remain in the fight with cars that were expected to be faster over a full race distance.

“The part of me that is realistic is very satisfied,” Gasly told media. He said Alpine had expected it to be “extremely difficult” to stay at the front for all 53 laps, making the team’s performance in the opening phase particularly encouraging.

Gasly also praised Alpine’s two starts, noting that he retained the lead initially and stayed with the leading group for the first 10 laps. Fighting Norris — who had won the previous two races — and finishing only three seconds behind Hamilton added further weight to his assessment.

“Obviously, the end result is P7, and you’ll wish you could get slightly more out of it,” he said. “But I think overall we just got to take all the positives from the weekend because there were many and try to build from that.”

Alpine seeks to understand Monza pace

Gasly said the Alpine was the best and most consistent car he had driven this year, while acknowledging that the team still needed to understand why it performed so strongly at Monza.

He expects the analysis of the weekend to be important, particularly because Monza is a special and unique circuit. The next objective is clear: determine which elements can be repeated at upcoming races and turn an extraordinary one-off performance into a more regular competitive level.