Gasly stuns Monza with first career pole
Pierre Gasly's 1m21.786s was the lap nobody saw coming, and it rewrites Alpine's entire Monza story.
Pierre Gasly claimed the first pole position of his Formula 1 career at Monza on Saturday, delivering a stunning 1:21.786 on his final Q3 run to beat George Russell by just 0.060 seconds and send the Alpine garage into scenes of complete chaos. Oscar Piastri qualified third for McLaren, although the Australian faces an investigation after an impeding incident involving Liam Lawson in Q2.
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Gasly found six hundredths on his final lap of Q3
Russell appeared to have done enough to secure pole after setting a 1:21.929 on the opening Q3 runs, with Piastri only 0.037s behind and Gasly another 0.035s further back. The margins were microscopic. Then Gasly went and made them irrelevant.
Both men improved on the final runs. Russell went quicker again, and it still was not enough. Gasly improved through the opening two sectors and crossed the line in 1:21.786, six hundredths clear, securing an extraordinary pole for Alpine. Piastri ran wide at the first chicane on his own final lap, costing him track position and leaving Lando Norris without a tow behind him. On the radio, the Frenchman could barely contain himself. “Let’s go. Let’s go. I’ve been waiting for that one!”
What makes this result genuinely difficult to explain is the context. Ferrari brought its second power unit upgrade of the season to its home race, while McLaren debuted its rotating rear wing, which the team has called the H-Wing. Both manufacturers arrived expecting to fight for the front row. Alpine arrived with an upgrade package of its own and executed it perfectly when it counted most.
Monza gave Gasly his only win, and now his first pole
After the heartbreak of losing his Monaco podium in the FIA court, Gasly claimed a shock pole position for the Italian Grand Prix. The timing could not be more pointed. Monza already owns the best day of his career. Gasly won the 2020 Italian Grand Prix here for AlphaTauri, and six years on that remains the only victory of his Formula 1 career. Now the same circuit has given him his first pole. He topped Q1 on Saturday and kept improving from there. Alpine had not started a race from the front since the team was renamed from Renault five years ago. You can read more about his Monaco saga in our piece on why Gasly lost his Monaco podium three months after the race.
It capped an impressive weekend for the team, which had already shown strong pace through practice and qualifying after putting the same upgraded specification on both cars. This is not a one-car fluke driven by tow geometry or lucky traffic. The upgrade is real.
Antonelli starts last, title fight tightens
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli qualified seventh for Mercedes, although his power unit penalties mean he is set to start from the back of the field. The chasers in the title race have a golden opportunity to make up ground on Antonelli, with Lewis Hamilton and Antonelli’s Mercedes team-mate George Russell both 59 points behind the 20-year-old in the Drivers’ standings.
Antonelli arrives at his home track knowing that his healthy points advantage is almost certain to be eaten into this weekend, with Mercedes triggering a back-of-the-grid start by exceeding power-unit component limits, a legacy of reliability issues from earlier in the season. You can find the full breakdown of the decision in our piece on why Antonelli’s Monza grid penalty could backfire. Antonelli himself, for his part, sounded unbothered. He said: “It’s not ideal to take a penalty at your home grand prix, especially one this big. But ultimately, as a team, we’re looking at the championship, and this is definitely one of the best tracks to do it. So it’s better to change everything now and hopefully avoid any problems in the future. I think that will allow me to enjoy it even more.”
There is also a subplot worth watching on Sunday. Antonelli had already stated his willingness to provide a slipstream boost for Russell come Q3. He did exactly that in qualifying. Whether Mercedes deploy the same team dynamic in the race, with Antonelli already free of grid position pressure, is one of the more fascinating strategic questions of the weekend. Read more on the Ferrari slipstream plans for Hamilton and Leclerc to see how tow tactics are shaping the whole race.
Alpine puts both cars in Q3
Franco Colapinto also made Q3 and qualified eighth, demonstrating the team’s competitiveness around Monza. That is not a coincidence. Home favourites Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton could only manage fourth and fifth for Ferrari, while Max Verstappen took sixth for Red Bull Racing. Lando Norris, the man McLaren need in the title fight, could only manage ninth, with Arvid Lindblad of Racing Bulls tenth.
The grid for Sunday’s Italian GP
Gasly has taken provisional pole for the Italian Grand Prix ahead of Russell and Piastri, with Antonelli, Albon and Lawson all set to start from the back of the grid due to multiple power unit component changes.
Monza’s long straights will make Sunday’s race a completely different conversation. Holding pole here is valuable, but the slipstream effect means the run down to the first chicane gives Russell, Piastri, Leclerc and Hamilton an immediate opportunity to attack, so Gasly will need a clean getaway if he wants to maintain the lead through Turn 1. For a driver who won here in 2020 from nowhere, he knows the circuit better than most. Do not count him out.
Follow the full race standings and Sunday’s result on our F1 drivers page.
