What Can Pierre Gasly Achieve in 2025?

Pierre Gasly is about to enter his ninth season in F1 and is one of the most respected drivers on the grid, but if you’d told him at his first race that nine years later he’d be excited for a season where his car may challenge for fifth quickest, I’m sure he’d be disappointed.

But with Alpine's reappointment of Flavio Briatore, the impact of David Sanchez and new regulations around the corner, the side and Pierre have every reason to feel a renewed sense of optimism. 

But what can Pierre realistically achieve in 2025? Let’s take a look.

Where are Alpine?

First of all, the best place to start is the form of Alpine post the David Sanchez-inspired upgrades of last year. With their revised floor and front wing they brought to Austin, the side immediately experienced a bounce in performance with Pierre P7 in qualifying - a stark difference to the P18 one round earlier in Singapore. Whilst the race only brought about a P12 finish, the side continued to learn and Pierre qualified P8 in Mexico.

At Brazil, a strong P7 finish in the Sprint was of course overshadowed by a brilliant recovery drive in the wet which saw Pierre surge from P13 to P3 after taking a gamble to stay out on used inters in arguably red-flag conditions. It was of course a day which remarkably saw two Alpines on the podium, but with the race being in the wet and let's be honest: crazy, it's hard to read too much into the performance, however it does give promising signs that Alpine will have a car able to capitalise on any days like that in 2025.

Pierre then followed this up with an incredible P3 in qualifying at Vegas, however, an engine failure saw Pierre retire when effectively running a net P8. In the final two races of the season, Alpine and Pierre continued to make strides forward with a brilliant defensive drive to hold off Sainz and finish P5 in Qatar, before bringing home P6 in the constructors with a P7 finish in Abu Dhabi.

So Alpine’s form at the back end of last season saw them in the hands of Pierre consistently challenge for Q3, and at times the middle order of Q3. In the race, they were battling for fifth quickest along with Haas.

So if we take that and apply it with what we’ve seen in testing and the noises coming out of the paddock, the reasonable suggestion would be that Alpine will be competing once again for that P5 position along with Aston Martin, Haas and potentially Williams. But with Alpine having a better package to build on from last year than the other two, they look to be the favourites to be best of the rest, at least in terms of car pace.

However, car pace is one thing, drivers are another. With Carlos Sainz coming in, there’s a definite argument to be made that he's the strongest driver in the midfield. Of course, Albon in better hardware poses a threat as well, whilst Alonso you can be sure will bring the fight. As for Pierre’s main rivals of last year, Ocon and Hulkenberg, it’s all change.

Nico was often the best of the rest last year, especially in qualifying, but his move to Sauber should limit his threat. When it comes to Esteban, his move to Haas and promotion to a team leader, should give him the ability to fight with Pierre regularly once again and it wouldn’t surprise me if Esteban is fighting for top of the midfield.

Elsewhere there’s Ollie Bearman who could pose a threat if he delivers, whilst Bortoleto could be one to watch on occasions.

But Pierre will be hoping it’s not just midfield drivers who will be his competitors this year. Last year, with Perez struggling so much, and Hamilton not getting to grips with his car in qualifying, there were two opportunistic spots at times amongst the top four teams. This year it's unsure how many opportunities there will be at the top.

Lawson and Antonelli of course offer up somewhat of an unknown quantity, and if the field is tight, then Pierre will hope to be in the best spot to capitalise on their inexperience, whilst Hamilton at Ferrari could go either way. That being said, if Lawson and Antonelli are able to deliver on their potential, and Hamilton settles with his Ferrari, then spots amongst the top 8 could prove limited.

Returning back to Alpine, there are still question marks over them for Pierre, despite his contract renewal last year. With Flavio Briatore coming back to the side, there felt like renewed optimism around them, however, is Pierre truly in Flavio’s plans?

Flavio recently spoke of how during his previous time at Enstone, the team's successes were built around a star driver. In the 90s with Benetton, it was Schumacher and in the mid-2000s with Renault, it was Alonso. Flavio then went on to say that it isn’t clear who will be the star of Alpine in the mid-2020s. And with Flavio seemingly desperate to bring in Carlos last year, it doesn’t scream confidence in Pierre.

But, it has to be said his other comments have shown belief:

“We always talk about Hamilton, Verstappen, Alonso, but not Gasly! I am convinced that with us, he will join the very closed circle of the 3 or 4 best drivers in F1.

He has the talent, but he needs the right environment to bring it out. We will give him that environment. He needs to have more confidence in the team, in the engineers.

Above all, he has to believe himself that he is a top driver. He has to change his mentality. From what I saw in the second half of the season last year, and from what I saw during the Bahrain tests, he has much better complicity with the engineers. He has this maturity now."

As for the team themselves, the past couple of years have really shown the limitations of the Renault PU, with Pierre suggesting the lack of power cost him front-row spots at both Vegas and Abu Dhabi last year. Of course, the side will have a Renault PU in the back of their car for the last time this year, and its limitations could prove costly with the field looking so close.

Whilst the move to Mercedes engines in 2026 was controversial, it provides an excellent opportunity for the side. There have been increasing talks that Mercedes will have the strongest engine for the new regulations and McLaren over the past two seasons has shown the success capable for customer teams.

As well as this, technical director David Sanchez already made a clear impact on the side last year, and with a full pre-season under his belt, excitement is building over the team's prospects both this year and next, even if they are to be limited by their PU.

Talks of a potential sale or rebrand to Hitech have also died down over recent weeks, and Flavio’s comments that the side will be fighting for wins come 2027, can only be taken as a positive.

However it does still feel as though there is a sense of instability at Alpine. At any one moment another crazy turn of events could happen, be it Doohan getting the sack after five races or the side getting sold, and none of this instability is good for Pierre.

How will he deal with being the team leader?

Back to matters on track, this is the first time during his spell at Alpine that Pierre will be the clear established team leader. After two tumultuous years alongside Esteban, Pierre will look to truly make the team his own, and with that will bring a few key benefits.

For the first year and a half alongside Esteban, Pierre wasn’t truly able to shape the direction of the car's performance and characteristics to his liking. This was evident as the two were very narrowly matched up until the announcement of Esteban’s departure, when after this Pierre became the spearhead of the side and development was focused mainly on his feedback. With the car developed more to his liking, the gap between Esteban and Pierre grew massively and Pierre was able to perform at similar levels to those he showed in 2021.

2021 was Pierre’s best year in the sport, and this was a year in which he was a clear team leader. His teammate that year was a rookie Yuki Tsunoda, and as such Pierre was able to have more of an input on the car's development and characteristics whilst also due to qualifying ahead of Yuki 21 times that season, receiving the favoured strategy more often than not.

So with a full year to potentially develop the car in his favour and most likely the favoured strategy, the point of being a clear team leader should be of great benefit to Pierre individually.

However, that is of course assuming Pierre is able to beat Jack Doohan and, potentially if rumours are to be believed, Franco Colapinto. The role of team leader, despite its benefits, does bring with it pressure. Pierre will need to comprehensively dispatch Jack to prove to Flavio and the rest of the team that they should truly build the future of the Alpine around him. If he isn’t able to, then don’t be surprised if Flavio makes moves to try to bring in a big name.

Saying this, it is of course expected that Pierre will be able to manage the pair of Doohan/Colapinto, but it isn’t a sure thing. Jack ran with an old spec front wing in his sole race last year, but even with it, was able to get within a couple of tenths of Pierre on his first couple of runs in Q1. With pressure on Jack to perform straight away and a point to prove, his somewhat unknown quantity shouldn’t be taken for granted by Pierre. And if he is to be replaced by Franco Colapinto, then Pierre will have to do more than Alex Albon did up against him last year to truly prove to the team he is the one to carry them forward.

Pierre’s Strengths/Weaknesses

Pierre’s qualifying pace has always been one of his biggest strengths. In 2021 at AlphaTauri, he managed to qualify in the top six 16 times and in fact had the 4th highest average starting position, behind just Hamilton, Verstappen and Bottas. In his time at Alpine, he has shown flashes of this brilliance with the standout P3 in Vegas but also seven Q3 appearances last year and a pair of P5s and a P4 in 2023.

There will undoubtedly be mentions of his sizeable gap in qualifying to Verstappen in 2019, but this was over 5 years ago and Pierre never got a handle on the unique characteristics of the Red Bull. With a team fully backing him and developing the car to his liking, this shouldn't be something to hold him back.

But are there question marks over his race pace? Well arguably yes, however, it is more so down to occasions where his tyre management, despite being praised by former boss Franz Tost, has let him down. Las Vegas in 2023 is a clear standout, with Pierre starting in P4 and finishing down in P11 after suffering from severe graining. This lost opportunity was made even clearer by the fact Esteban went on to finish P4 that same race.

Pierre though has at times still demonstrated excellent race pace and management, so it would be harsh to conclude from a couple of occasions that he is poor at this skill. In 2021, Zandvoort and Mexico are clear standouts of times Pierre showed excellent management to finish P4 on both occasions. Other impressive dry drives such as Portugal 2020, Baku 2021/2022, Qatar 2024 and of course Monza 2020 show Pierre has the capabilities to fight at the front when his car is there. His defensive driving skills outweigh his overtaking ability, which he demonstrated excellently in Qatar last year.

And when we’re looking at Pierre’s strengths, his ability to capitalise on crazy days cannot be understated. He is arguably the best driver in the midfield at making the most of opportunities. His win in Monza stands out, where he had an excellent restart to leap Stroll into 2nd and then expertly held off a charging Sainz from the front. In the rain, Pierre has also often been able to make the most of the conditions. His P3 in Zandvoort and Sprint P3 in Spa in 2023 were brilliant examples of Pierre’s ability to read situations and take them into his own hands, whilst his P3 in Brazil last year showed both this and his overall excellent ability in the wet, going from P13 to P3.

As for other weaknesses though, at times it has been questioned whether or not he is too safe when it comes to overtaking. This was something particularly questioned during his spell at Red Bull, however since then, Pierre has shown his ability on many occasions - think Perez, Eau Rogue 2020.

You’d have to say Pierre’s biggest weakness then is his consistency, or more so lack of it but it is hard to truly judge this when the cars he has driven to this point in his career have always fluctuated in performance level from weekend to weekend. Despite being in the sport for nearly nine years, Pierre has yet to prove himself as a driver who can fight at the front consistently, but as I just said this is more so down to lack of opportunity. This year Pierre will hope the A525 will be able to be a solid performer every weekend, for him to be able to prove when the car is stable, he can be consistent.

So what can Pierre achieve?

With all that in mind you’d have to say similar results to the back end of last year should be on offer once again. P6s-P10s should arguably be the minimum both in qualifying and races, whilst Pierre will be hoping for a podium or two on the occasions at which opportunities present themselves such as wet races or red flags.

It looks on paper to potentially be a similar year to 2021 for Pierre. A rookie teammate, a battle for 5th/6th quickest car and potentially some great qualifying performances.

As for the driver's standings, Pierre will be hoping to be best of the rest and finish P9, equalling his performance of 2021, with anything above looking out of reach.

It looks to be an exciting year for Pierre, and he’ll look to get off to a good start around a circuit he’s done well at before this weekend in Melbourne.