Pierre Gasly was one of the most consistently impressive drivers over the final races of last year. That said, his outgoing team mate beat him to Alpine’s best result of the season.
Alpine began the year with the slowest car on the grid but gradually recovered to join the midfielders scrapping for the lower half of the points positions. At the beginning of the season, when points were almost impossible to come by, Gasly usually trailled behind Esteban Ocon, though in Shanghai he could point to the fact his team mate got their new, lighter floor first.
Eventually Alpine managed to breach the top 10. Gasly’s first point came in Monaco where he survived a careless first-lap lunge from Ocon to come in 10th. That began a brief spell of points finishes including ninth in Montreal and Catalunya, plus 10th at the Red Bull Ring, all taken ahead of Ocon, though in Canada the team ordered the pair to swap places.
The balance of power ebbed and flowed between the two drivers as the season passed its halfway point. Gasly was in inspired form at Zandvoort, a track which seems to bring out the best in him, where he came ninth, and he picked up another point in Mexico. However he followed his team mate home at Spa, Monza and Singapore.
Pierre Gasly
| Best | Worst | |
|---|---|---|
| GP start | 3 | 20 (x2) |
| GP finish | 3 | 20 |
| Points | 42 | |
Life got more interesting for the Alpine drivers over the final fly-away races where the team finally wrung some performance from the A524. Gasly qualified a fine sixth at Austin but a slow pit stop and a penalty for passing Alexander Albon off-track left him out of the points.
Gasly played second fiddle when Alpine scored by far their best result of the year at Interlagos, coming in third behind Ocon. He started nine places behind his team mate after Ocon cheekily passed him at Juncao in qualifying, costing him a chance to improve his lap time.
But while Alpine prepared to drop the Haas-bound Ocon one race early, Gasly continued to deliver strong results. Fifth place in Qatar and seventh in Abu Dhabi helped cement the team’s sixth place in the constructors’ championship.
He might have added another strong finish in Las Vegas, where he qualified a superb third but retired with a power unit problem. Other technical failures in Jeddah (gearbox), Silverstone (gearbox again) and the Hungaroring (hydraulics) meant Gasly lost more to car problems than most drivers, though he deserves credit for not causing any collisions himself. He heads into the new season having established himself as team leader at Alpine and arguably in the best form of his F1 career so far.
RaceFans’ driver rankings are based partly on the scores awarded to drivers for their performances in each round as well as other factors.
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