Pierre Gasly driver profile: the Monza winner Red Bull let go
Pierre Gasly is the only driver on the current grid who has been demoted by Red Bull, sent back to the junior team, and gone on to win a Grand Prix anyway. That race was Monza in 2020, and it remains one of the great unlikely results of the modern era.
Pierre Gasly: Fast Facts
- Full name: Pierre Gasly
- Date of birth: 7 February 1996
- Born in: Rouen, France
- Nationality: French
- Lives in: Milan, Italy
- Junior title: GP2 champion, 2016
- F1 debut: 2017, Toro Rosso
- Grand Prix win: Italian Grand Prix, Monza, 2020
- 2026 team: Alpine F1 Team
- Car number: 10
- Team-mate: Franco Colapinto
Promoted, demoted, and then Monza
Gasly won GP2 in 2016, spent a year in Super Formula in Japan, and reached Formula 1 with Toro Rosso in 2017. Red Bull promoted him to the senior team for 2019 alongside Max Verstappen.
It did not work. Halfway through the season he was sent back down, which in most careers is where the story quietly ends.
Instead he finished second in Brazil that year and then, at Monza in 2020, won the Italian Grand Prix outright after a red flag and a penalty for Lewis Hamilton reshuffled the race. He had to hold off Carlos Sainz over the closing laps to do it, which is the part people forget.
A driver who inherits a lead and then has to defend it for fifteen laps under that much pressure has earned the result.
The Alpine years
Gasly moved to Alpine in 2023, and the seasons since have been about extracting results from a team in permanent reorganisation.
He has largely done it. Alpine has cycled through team principals and technical leadership, and through it Gasly has been the fixed point: the driver who scores when the car allows and provides the reference the team builds around.
For 2026 he is paired with Franco Colapinto, whose contract for 2027 was confirmed during the summer, giving Alpine a settled line-up for the first time in years. Our Monza preview covers where the team stands right now.
Monza means something here
It is worth noting where Gasly lives. Milan, which makes the Italian Grand Prix close to a home race for him, at the circuit where he won.
He talks about that 2020 result as something he reflects on regularly, and there is no reason to doubt it. Most drivers on the grid will never win a Grand Prix. He won one from a position nobody would have picked.
For current standings and the latest, see our Formula 1 coverage. Profile last updated 2 September 2026.