You can make a strong case that Pierre Gasly has been Formula 1’s king of the midfield in recent years, with his main rival for that unwanted accolade being Williams driver Alex Albon. Given Alpine’s plight, currently rock bottom in the constructors’ championship and a team now inextricably linked to uncertainty and indecision thanks to its revolving-door leadership, Gasly’s recent decision to sign a new deal that will keep him at the Renault-owned team until the end of 2028 is a strange one.
Alpine has the better end of this deal. Its fumbling of the choice of second driver means it’s been in a state of self-induced confusion over who to put alongside him, in doing so limiting the chances of both Jack Doohan and Franco Colapinto producing their best work. This makes securing Gasly for the long term one of the few Alpine moves meriting unreserved praise.
But you have to ask: what’s in it for Gasly, given he was already under contract for 2026?
After all, he offers guaranteed performance in that area of the grid and would be of interest to rivals were he available. While a move to an established top team is a ship that seemingly sailed for good when he was ditched by Red Bull Racing after just 12 races in 2019, there’s always an outside chance some unexpected driver market shenanigans could lead to Gasly fitting the bill as a number two. And even if not, Gasly would be in demand by more convincingly upwardly-mobile outfits for 2027 or ’28 and in a position to play the market to his advantage.
Gasly, who has become one of the more frank and honest drivers in recent years, isn’t polishing this move with bland platitudes. While he talks up the value of having “some clarity and showing my commitment” and is positive about the team’s future, he admits inking a new Alpine deal wasn’t a clear-cut decision.
“Of course I did, it’s just normal stuff to do,” he said after qualifying at Monza when asked if he was tempted to look elsewhere. “It’s not like it was a no-brainer, looking at the performance at the start of the year. There is some thinking behind it, but honestly I believe this is a very strong option. I’ve just got to wait and display some good performance from next season.”
There are reasons to expect an improvement next year. Alpine ditches its own engine favor of a switch to Mercedes customer power units in a move that lowers the ultimate performance potential of the team, but that could give it a shortcut to climbing the grid. At worst, it should eliminate the current disadvantage in terms of peak power and energy-recovery efficiency that rendered the car the worst on the grid at Monza and other power-sensitive tracks. At best, if the Mercedes PU is as strong as everyone predicts, then it could give Alpine an advantage over many of the teams it’s currently behind.
That said, it would be ridiculous to suggest that it could take the fight to the works Mercedes team and McLaren given its struggles, not to mention fellow Mercedes customer Williams. Remember, while this is the same team that won world championships with Michael Schumacher in the 1990s and Fernando Alonso in the 2000s, it’s managed just a single lucky race win in the past 12 years.
Gasly has lived and breathed Alpine F1 since joining the team in 2023, so he knows exactly what is going on inside. While Flavio Briatore, who returned as de facto team boss last year, has been unconvincing so far, it’s only in 2026 with the new rules that the longer-term trajectory can be judged definitively. It could be that under technical director David Sanchez the team will take a leap up the grid. If so – and that’s a big if – Gasly will be justified, as provided it becomes a more consistent midfield force. that’s a reasonable place for him to be.
Gasly delivered his – and Alpine’s – best result of the season to date with sixth at a soggy Silverstone. Alex Bierens de Haan/Getty Images
That said, Gasly is no fool. The exact details of his contract are unknown, but given Alpine is in dire need of a proven driver to build around, it’s likely there are clauses that could allow him to leave for a big-team offer or if Alpine again fails to make the promised progress. To be the focal point of any F1 team in the cost-cap era, when it is realistic to expect teams that were once locked in the midfield pushing on and emerging as race-winning forces, is a good position to be in provided there’s flexibility to leave if it falls short. Gasly will know that’s a possibility, especially given its unconvincing recent record.
Gasly is also being pragmatic. He turns 30 next February, and while he has plenty of F1 miles left in him, this maximizes his earning potential. Most F1 driver pay reports should be treated with suspicion, but he was already well paid by midfield standards before this new deal and Alpine must have offered him more. It would be unfair to accuse Gasly of avarice for wanting to guarantee future paychecks, or suggest he’s putting mercenary objectives over sporting ones, but it’s important to be realistic. Famously, Briatore was unconvinced by Gasly initially and has now come to recognize the value he’s bringing to the team, which will be reflected in his pay deal. Doohan and Colapinto have failed to score this year, while Gasly has picked up 20 points from his four top-10 finishes. That makes him worth every penny for a team that would find it impossible to attract a driver of equivalent quality. It says a lot that Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez committed to Cadillac, which should be a distant last next year, rather than holding out for an Alpine deal.
For all his qualities, Gasly is desperately unlikely to get himself into the position to be world champion whatever route he takes. At his best, he is capable of producing outstanding race weekends, right up there with the top drivers on the grid to the point where what he’s doing for Alpine resembles how Max Verstappen has carried Red Bull recently. While overshadowed by Nico Hulkenberg’s podium finish, his performance across all three days at Silverstone was outstanding and yielded Alpine’s best finish of the year, sixth place. There have been weekends where no matter how well he has driven, it’s been difficult to catch the eye. Occasionally Gasly has struggled a little while chasing set-up avenues that ultimately haven’t yielded a magical performance boost on uncompetitive weekends, but he hasn’t wasted any opportunity to bag a result.
What’s particularly impressive about Gasly over the years is that he has consistently improved, which is not necessarily a given for drivers who fall into the good-but-not-great category. It’s important to note that’s no damning criticism because there are few truly great drivers, and only 34 people have won the world championship in 75 years, but he has chipped away at his weaknesses. During his Red Bull stint, in only his second full season in F1, he too often got lost chasing set-up perfection from corner to corner rather than being able to pick out the best global compromise. That’s something those who have worked with him since have highlighted as an area of improvement, with lengthy and detailed debriefs pruned back thanks to Gasly’s gains in terms of being able to see the big picture and take a more targeted approach to the key changes. He’s had a strong work ethic, willing to study data endlessly, which is now augmented by efficiency and clarity.
He’s also sharpened his skills in getting the best out of a wide range of car dynamics. Fundamentally, he’s a driver who likes to be committed on the brakes and likes a responsive car on turn-in, provided the rear end has the stability he needs for full confidence. When the current regulations were introduced in 2022, he had to work to adapt to cars that, broadly speaking, tend towards slow-corner understeer and therefore don’t respond so well to a late-braking approach, while also battling rear-end instability at high speed. There were times that year, in his final season with what’s now called Racing Bulls, when the front-end limitation inhibited him, but he has worked hard to tackle that. This has made him a more adaptable driver, capable of more often being at his best. He also has experience, combined with the confidence that was rebuilt with Red Bull’s junior team that means he knows what he wants and needs, making him a dependable performer.
If Gasly could be at or near his very best every single weekend, he would be in the top caliber of driver who you would point to as a potential world champion. However, adaptability and consistency in delivery are two of the key characteristics of the great drivers and he falls short on that by a small margin, but a significant one when you are differentiating between great F1 drivers and very good ones. He nonetheless has the skillset to get you results, as he proved at Monza in 2020 by closing out a race-winning opportunity. At his best, when fully confident on a qualifying lap, he can be breathtakingly fast.
