Gasly’s expectations and advice for Alpine this season

Frenchman Pierre Gasly drove an incredible 2024 season and will remain fulfilling an imperative part in the Alpine team in 2025. This week, the Formula 1 circus will arrive at the Bahrain International Circuit for three days of winter testing. With impactful regulation changes on the way for 2026, some of the minor teams in the sport might have put the focus on developing cars for next year before this season has even kicked off, leaving little budget for upgrading their machinery throughout the season. Alpine might be among those teams if they took advice from their number one driver Gasly, the bar for 2025 was raised high though as well for Alpine earlier this week.

Pierre Gasly in 2024, retrieved from Pinterest.

The master of the midfield

Debuting in the Malaysian Grand Prix in 2017 with Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso, Pierre Gasly started his career with a long-term stay in the Red Bull family. During his first full season in 2018 he got the better of his teammate, Brendon Hartley, and earned a promotion to Red Bull filling up the seat alongside Max Verstappen which Daniel Ricciardo left behind. The Red Bull move came too soon for Gasly as he could not get remotely close to Verstappen and would be demoted to Toro Rosso again for the proceeding year. Here, the Frenchman started getting to grips with the sport, developing his skills in a less pressurized surrounding compared to the Austrian Formula 1 team. In 2020 the then 24-year-old even scored a shock win at Monza, marking a long awaited first win since 1996 for a French driver. In 2023, Gasly would depart from the Red Bull family after delivering numerous fantastic performances with the junior team across the years as Alpine signed him to their Enstone-based team.

2024 was one of Formula 1’s most competitive years ever, with seven drivers bagging multiple race wins throughout the season. The competitiveness up front often overshadowed the intense battles further down the order. Gasly emerged as most level-headed driver on the entire grid in these feisty battles. Often racing with about five cars in close proximity during the races, the Alpine driver managed to sneak into the minor points paying positions on six occasions. Especially throughout the first half of the year, these performances just about kept the team within striking distance of competitors Haas and Williams as the French team feared ending up in second-to-last place in the constructor’s championship. During a rain-soaked Brazilian Grand Prix, however, Alpine would bring home 35 points making the most of neutralizations and safety cars and finishing second with Ocon and third with Gasly, behind that year’s drivers champion Max Verstappen. This result would shoot Alpine up into sixth in the standings where they would finish the season. Gasly massively outperformed his fellow Frenchman and teammate Ocon, scoring 64.6% of Alpine’s points on his own accord. Even more impressive was the fact that the 29-year-old had gone through the entire season without causing damage to his car due to his own actions. This cool-headedness, intelligence, and consistency Gasly managed to display in 2024 makes him one of the top performers from last season.

Alpine's 2025 challenger was unveiled last week, retrieved from Formula1.com.

What lies ahead?

 With 2024 Alpine reserve driver Jack Doohan being granted a contract with the team for the upcoming season, Pierre Gasly will have an exciting new element to work with. Doohan is not the most exciting rookie this year, as he has not quite got a resume as the likes of rookies Kimi Antonelli from Mercedes or Gabriel Bortoleto from Sauber. He has however, made his Grand Prix debut in Abu Dhabi and kept the car in one piece, fulfilling the assignment for that event. With Ocon departing the team, however, it is safe to say that Gasly will be heading into the 2025 season as clear lead driver for the team.

Last week, during a chat with motorsport.com Gasly set his expectations quite high for 2025 “I'll go with a top five in the constructors', because that's what I want and I think that's definitely achievable”.  Considering the deficit between Alpine and fifth place finishers Aston Martin last year was 29 constructor points, this goal might well be achieved. The issue however is the development towards 2026, which was expressed a couple of days ago by Pierre Gasly as well: "If it was down to me, all the budget would be on 2026, but I am not in control of the budget.”

Pierre Gasly and his new teammate Jack Doohan at the F1-75 event last week, retrieved from Kymillman on Instagram.

Combining a challenge for ‘best of the rest’ in 2025 with a development of a possible race winner for 2026 will not be an easy task at all. The Alpine team did end 2024 on a high, where their closest competitors fell off a cliff in performance which brings the Enstone team a strong base to build up from this year. Gasly definitely is capable of delivering the performances Alpine is looking for and will not crumble in a fierce battle with other midfield teams. His new teammate Doohan on the contrary is quite a big question mark leading into his first full Formula 1 season. Only if Doohan can consistently scrap for the minor points paying positions a fifth place would be obtainable for Alpine.