Pierre Gasly delivered a stunning performance at the Italian Grand Prix, securing his inaugural Formula One pole position and catching the sport’s usual front‑runners off guard. The Alpine driver, who had just seen a court decision strip him of his Monaco podium, turned the tables in Monza’s high‑speed qualifying session and emerged as the fastest over a single lap.
Going into the final segment of qualifying (Q3), Gasly was sitting third on the leaderboard. Rather than pushing early, he saved his strongest lap for the very end, overtaking provisional pole‑sitter George Russell with a blistering final effort of 1:21.786. That lap not only handed him the top spot but also marked his first pole after 190 Grand Prix starts, a milestone that arrives six years after his lone career victory, also achieved at Monza under unlikely circumstances while he was driving for AlphaTauri. The achievement is historic for several reasons.
It is the first time the Alpine name has ever taken a pole in Formula 1, and it is the first pole for the Enstone‑based, Renault‑owned outfit since 2009. The result also gave France its first pole‑sitter since Jean Alesi’s Benetton triumph at Monza in 1997. Russell, who had led the early part of the final lap before being held up by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, missed the top spot by just 0.060 seconds. Nonetheless, the British driver will line up second on the grid, while his teammate Kimi Antonelli is set to start from the back of the field after incurring engine‑change penalties.
Antonelli, who had helped Russell with a tow in the session, qualified seventh but accepted that his penalty would push him to the rear regardless of his on‑track performance. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri originally qualified third, but a three‑place grid drop for obstructing Red Bull’s Liam Lawson in Q2 relegated him to sixth. This penalty promoted Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to the third and fourth slots, respectively, with Verstappen sliding into fifth. Both Ferraris will occupy the second row despite a relatively modest qualifying showing; they had struggled to find the pole‑winning pace they had displayed earlier in the season.
The top ten after penalties were applied looked as follows: 1) Pierre Gasly (Alpine), 2) George Russell (Mercedes), 3) Oscar Piastri (McLaren, after penalty), 4) Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), 5) Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), 6) Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 7) Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes, penalised), 8) Franco Colapinto (Alpine), 9) Lando Norris (McLaren), 10) Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls). Norris, the reigning champion, had qualified ninth after losing a tow on his final lap due to an error by Piastri at the first chicane, but he will still start eighth thanks to Antonelli’s grid drop. The backdrop to Gasly’s triumph was a turbulent weekend for Alpine.
Earlier on Friday, the FIA’s International Court of Appeal reinstated a pit‑lane speeding penalty from the Monaco race, demoting Gasly’s Monaco result from third to seventh for the second time. The team’s morale could have suffered, yet they produced a performance that seemed improbable just hours earlier. Alpine’s 2026 campaign has already shown marked improvement over the dismal 2025 season, when the team finished at the bottom of the constructors’ standings.
However, before Saturday’s qualifying, the team had never started a race higher than seventh on the grid. In the final practice session, Gasly was ninth fastest, trailing Russell by six‑tenths of a second, but the A526 chassis, powered by a Mercedes engine, proved to be a pole‑worthy package when the Frenchman hit the track in qualifying. The team appears to have refined the car’s rear‑wing settings for Monza’s ultra‑fast layout.
Gasly led the first qualifying segment (Q1) and followed that up with a solid fourth‑place showing in Q2, staying ahead of the pole favourite Russell. In the opening runs of Q3, Russell posted the fastest time, but Gasly remained in striking distance, just 0.072 seconds off the lead and firmly in contention.
The decisive moment arrived on Gasly’s final run. While Piastri compromised his own pole chances by locking the brakes into the first chicane, and Russell’s warm‑up lap was disrupted, Gasly seized the opportunity, delivering a flawless lap that eclipsed both rivals.
The Alpine garage erupted in celebration, and an ecstatic Gasly could be heard on the team radio shouting, “Yessssss! Let’s go.
I’ve been waiting for that one!” In his post‑qualifying interview, Gasly reflected on the significance of the achievement: “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 got my first pole at this track. It’s something special around here.” Russell, meanwhile, paid tribute to his French counterpart, noting a friendly chess match they had played just before qualifying. “Massive congrats to Pierre.
That’s an incredible performance,” he 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 not to get pole. It was a bit messy with Verstappen opening the lap, I did the lap very close, but Pierre and Alpine have been super fast.” The pole‑winning moment adds a new chapter to Gasly’s career narrative.
After a win in 2020 at Monza, his first and only victory to date, the French driver now joins an exclusive list of drivers who have both won and taken pole at the iconic Italian circuit. The result also underscores Alpine’s resurgence and hints at a potentially more competitive second half of the season, with the team now capable of challenging the traditional front‑running manufacturers. The race schedule for Sunday includes support events such as the F3 Feature Race, F2 Feature Race, and Porsche Supercup, leading up to the main Grand Prix at 2 pm on Sky Sports F1.
Fans can stream the coverage via NOW without a long‑term contract, and the event promises further drama as Alpine looks to convert its historic pole into a strong race result.