Pierre Gasly delivered a stunning performance at Monza, earning his inaugural Formula One pole position and catching the sport’s usual front‑runners off guard. The Alpine driver, who had just seen his podium finish from the Monaco Grand Prix stripped away for a second time following a court decision, turned the tables in qualifying by becoming a genuine threat on the high‑speed circuit.
Going into the final segment of qualifying, Q3, Gasly was sitting third on the leaderboard. Rather than rush, he held back his quickest lap for the very last run. When the clock ticked down, he unleashed a blistering lap of 1:21.786, overtaking provisional pole‑sitter George Russell by a razor‑thin margin of 0.060 seconds and clinching the top spot.
The achievement marked Gasly’s first pole in his 190th Grand Prix start, arriving six years after his lone career victory – also at Monza – which came under similarly improbable circumstances while he was driving for AlphaTauri. The pole is historic for several reasons.
It is the first time the Alpine name has ever topped an F1 qualifying session, and it also ends a decade‑long drought for the Renault‑owned Enstone outfit, which has not secured a pole since 2009. Russell, who had led the early part of the final lap before being hindered by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, was left to rue a "messy" start and settled for second on the grid.
His teammate, Kimi Antonelli, will start from the back of the field due to an engine‑change penalty, despite having helped Russell with a tow in qualifying and posting a respectable seventh‑place time. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri originally qualified third but incurred a three‑place grid drop for impeding Red Bull’s Liam Lawson in Q2. Consequently, Piastri will line up sixth on Sunday, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton move up to third and fourth respectively, with Verstappen slotted into fifth.
Both Ferraris will start on the second row after a difficult session in which their expected pole‑pacing never materialised. The Scuderia was fortunate to keep both cars inside the top ten, with Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto finishing a hair’s breadth – 0.001 seconds – behind Hamilton in tenth place, while Leclerc had been ninth.
The provisional top ten after qualifying read as follows: 1) Pierre Gasly (Alpine), 2) George Russell (Mercedes), 3) Oscar Piastri (McLaren*), 4) Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), 5) Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), 6) Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 7) Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes**), 8) Franco Colapinto (Alpine), 9) Lando Norris (McLaren), 10) Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls). *Piastri carries a three‑place penalty; **Antonelli will drop to the back of the grid due to engine penalties. Lando Norris, the reigning champion, qualified only ninth after a series of poles and wins on either side of the summer break.
He lost a tow on his final lap when Piastri made an error at the first chicane, but he still moves up to eighth thanks to Antonelli’s penalty. With the championship leader now starting from the back, Alpine teammate Franco Colapinto inherits seventh, Norris eighth, and Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad ninth.
Bortoleto rounds out the top ten. The weekend’s drama began on Friday when the FIA International Court of Appeal reinstated Gasly’s pit‑lane speeding penalties from the Monaco race, demoting his earlier third‑place finish to seventh. The reversal could have deflated Alpine’s morale, yet the team responded with a performance that seemed improbable only weeks earlier. After a lackluster 2025 season that saw Alpine finish at the bottom of the standings, the team has turned a corner, though it had never started a race higher than seventh on the grid until this Saturday.
In the final practice session, Gasly was ninth fastest, just 0.6 seconds off Russell’s benchmark. However, Alpine’s A526 chassis, powered by a Mercedes engine, appeared to have found a sweet spot on the fastest circuit on the calendar after the team trimmed the rear‑wing levels. Gasly topped Q1, then reinforced his pace with a fourth‑place finish in Q2, staying ahead of the pole favourite Russell.
Q3 began with Russell posting the fastest time, but Gasly remained within striking distance, only 0.072 seconds behind in third. The decisive moment arrived when Piastri locked up at the first chicane, ruining his own pole chance, and Russell’s warm‑up lap for his final attempt was compromised. Gasly seized the opportunity, delivering a flawless run that vaulted him into first place.
The Alpine garage erupted in celebration as Gasly’s pole was confirmed. Over the team radio he shouted, "Yessssss!
Let's go. I've been waiting for that one!" In the post‑qualifying interview, the Frenchman reflected, "From the first lap in Q1 I felt very good in the car. I tried to chip away a little bit every single session, and it felt like a very good lap. It's been nine years trying to chase the opportunity to get a pole.
I won my first race in Monza and now I have my first pole at this track. It's something special around here." Russell paid tribute to Gasly, noting that the French driver had also beaten him at chess just before the session. "Massive congrats to Pierre.
That's an incredible performance," Russell said. "We were finishing a game of chess about 15 minutes before qualifying and he beat me there and I thought, 'well, I think I will beat you in qualifying' and here we are, he's ahead of me again! Huge congrats to him. I was disappointed to not get pole position.
It was a bit messy with Verstappen opening the lap, I did the lap very close, but Pierre and Alpine have been super fast." Gasly’s achievement also carries a national milestone: he is the first French driver to claim an F1 pole since Jean Alesi’s Benetton pole at Monza in 1997, linking the modern Alpine team to its historic roots. The weekend schedule continues with an F3 feature race at 7:10 am, an F2 feature at 8:40 am, the Porsche Supercup at 10:40 am, and the main Grand Prix race at 2:00 pm, followed by post‑race analysis.
Fans can watch the Italian Grand Prix live on Sky Sports F1, with streaming available through NOW without a long‑term contract. The race promises to be a thrilling showdown, especially with Alpine starting from the front row for the first time in its history.