Pierre Gasly Claims Historic Pole at Monza

Pierre Gasly ripped up the script at Monza.

On a weekend when Mercedes and McLaren arrived expecting to trade blows for pole, the Frenchman and Alpine stole the show. With a lap of 1min 21.786sec, Gasly claimed his first ever Formula One pole position and Alpine’s first, edging George Russell by six-hundredths of a second in a qualifying session that crackled with tension and politics in equal measure.

Oscar Piastri will start third for McLaren, with Charles Leclerc fourth and Lewis Hamilton fifth. Defending world champion Lando Norris could do no better than ninth on a day that belonged, emphatically, to the man in blue.

Gasly’s Monza masterpiece

Gasly has history here. He won his only grand prix at Monza in 2020, a chaotic, safety-car-scrambled race that turned on a timely pit stop and a penalty for Hamilton. This time there was no fortune, no caveat. Just raw pace and a lap that stunned the paddock.

Alpine have been nowhere near the front all season, marooned in the midfield and fighting for scraps. Gasly sits only 10th in the drivers’ standings, his team sixth in the constructors’. Nothing about 2024 suggested they had a pole in them, let alone at a track that rewards power and aerodynamic efficiency.

Yet from the start of the weekend Gasly looked alive around the old royal park. He was sharp in practice, sharp in Q1 and Q2, and when the final shootout came, he did not blink.

On the first runs in Q3, the tow games began. At Monza, the slipstream is gold dust, and Mercedes rolled out their plan with clinical precision. Kimi Antonelli, the championship leader, was deployed as the perfect wingman, punching a hole in the air for Russell. McLaren mirrored the tactic, Norris giving Piastri a drag down the long straights.

Russell delivered: 1min 21.929sec, good enough to top the timesheets. Piastri slotted in just behind. Gasly, though, quietly parked his Alpine in third, only hundredths away. The top four were split by seven-hundredths of a second. Nothing in it. Everything on the line.

Then came the final runs.

Mercedes sent Antonelli early, alone, burning a lap before returning to his role as tow car. Ferrari lined up Leclerc to help Hamilton. McLaren reversed their earlier move, Piastri now towing Norris. It looked like a straight fight between the usual heavyweights.

Piastri pushed too hard. Into turn one he braked late, overcooked the chicane and ruined the lap that was supposed to launch Norris into contention. The world champion’s shot at pole evaporated before the first sector had ticked over.

Russell, by contrast, nailed his lap. With Antonelli’s slipstream dragging him down the straight, the Briton stitched together a run that screamed pole position. Sector after sector went purple. The Mercedes garage erupted as he crossed the line.

Then Gasly arrived.

Running in Russell’s wake, he hooked up a lap of rare precision and nerve, wringing everything from a car that has rarely belonged in this company. Across the line, the timing screens flipped: Gasly to P1 by 0.063sec. Alpine’s garage exploded. The paddock paused.

A shock, yes. But no fluke.

Antonelli sent to the back, title picture in play

The grid tells only half the story of Mercedes’ afternoon. Antonelli, who leads both Russell and Hamilton by 59 points in the championship, will start from the back row despite qualifying seventh. The team chose Monza to take a complete set of new engine components, accepting the penalty in exchange for fresh power at a circuit where overtaking is possible and, often, brutal.

The calculation is clear. From the rear, Mercedes still believe Antonelli can slice his way through to fifth. Russell, starting second, has a golden chance to hack into his teammate’s lead. Hamilton, from fifth, sits ready to profit from any chaos ahead.

It sets up a fascinating dynamic for Sunday. Gasly on pole, in a car that has not yet shown race-winning pace over a full stint. Russell in a Mercedes that should be ferocious in clean air. Antonelli, the championship leader, buried at the back with a fast car and a long afternoon of risk and reward ahead.

For Gasly, the task is stark. He has earned this pole on merit, but keeping two Mercedes, two McLarens and two Ferraris behind over a full grand prix distance at Monza is another matter entirely.

Alpine under fire, Gasly delivers

Gasly’s lap also arrived against a stormy political backdrop for Alpine.

Before qualifying, the FIA’s International Court of Appeal (ICA) issued a pointed rebuttal to Alpine after explosive claims from the team’s executive advisor and de facto principal, Flavio Briatore. On Friday, Briatore had suggested that one of the judges involved in overturning Gasly’s third place at the Monaco Grand Prix was biased in favour of McLaren, who had appealed the result.

He went further, naming the judge and describing him as a “prosecutor,” accusing him of being “very linked with McLaren.” The remarks triggered a furious response. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella branded the insinuations “insulting” to his outfit.

The ICA, operating independently of the FIA, hit back in a formal statement. It underlined that Alpine had been given every opportunity to question the composition of the judging panel but had chosen not to do so.

“At both the beginning and conclusion of the hearing, the parties were invited to raise any issue concerning the proceedings or the composition of the court. None did so. No objection was raised during the hearing concerning the manner in which the court questioned the witness or conducted the proceedings,” the statement read.

The court stressed that the appointment and participation of judges followed FIA judicial procedures and standard practice, aligned with international guidelines on conflicts of interest. Judges, it noted, are bound by independence and confidentiality rules, file annual disclosures of interests, and sign a specific declaration of independence for each case, which is shared with the parties involved.

It was a sharp, public reminder of the boundaries in Formula One’s legal battles. For Alpine, already under scrutiny, the timing could hardly have been worse.

And yet, out on track, Gasly cut through the noise.

In his ninth full F1 season, a driver many had pigeonholed as a solid midfielder produced a lap that will sit with the best of his career. It did not erase Monaco, nor the legal rows, nor Alpine’s wider struggles. But it did something else.

It put a blue car back on pole at Monza. It gave a restless team a jolt of belief. It set up a Sunday in which a man who has often thrived in chaos now has to control the race from the very front.

Can he keep the wolves behind him over 53 laps of Monza, with Russell charging, McLaren lurking, and Antonelli storming through the pack from the back row?

The answer will define more than just one grand prix.