Alpine's Pierre Gasly will start from P1 for Sunday's Italian Grand Prix after stunning the Formula 1 world with the quickest time during Saturday's qualifying session at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza track.
Extraordinary scenes at Monza as Pierre Gasly takes pole! 🤯#F1 #ItalianGP @AlpineF1Team pic.twitter.com/0iFd76Kb8T
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 5, 2026
Gasly's pole is the first of his career and first ever by Alpine. He's also the first French driver to accomplish the feat since the 1997 Italian GP.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | 1:22.220 |
| 2 | George Russell | Mercedes | +0.060 |
| 3 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | +0.180 |
| 4 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | +0.218 |
| 5 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | +0.225 |
| 6 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | +0.284 |
| 7 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | +0.307 |
| 8 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | +0.434 |
| 9 | Lando Norris | McLaren | +0.470 |
| 10 | Arvid Lindblad | Racing Bulls | +0.500 |
| 11 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Audi | Q2 |
| 12 | Ollie Bearman | Haas | Q2 |
| 13 | Nico Hulkenberg | Audi | Q2 |
| 14 | Liam Lawson | Red Bull | Q2 |
| 15 | Carlos Sainz | Williams | Q2 |
| 16 | Esteban Ocon | Haas | Q2 |
| 17 | Yuki Tsunoda | Racing Bulls | Q1 |
| 18 | Alex Albon | Williams | Q1 |
| 19 | Valtteri Bottas | Cadillac | Q1 |
| 20 | Sergio Perez | Cadillac | Q1 |
| 21 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | Q1 |
| 22 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | Q1 |
Gasly's historic performance comes one day after he was stripped of a third-place finish at the Monaco GP on appeal. The 30-year-old was dropped down to seventh Friday after a 10-second penalty was reapplied for speeding in the pit lane in June. As a result, Isack Hadjar moved onto the podium in third while Oscar Piastri moved up to fourth, Liam Lawson to fifth, and Arvid Lindblad to sixth.
Alpine won the initial appeal but the FIA's International Court of Appeal overturned the ruling.
"The problem is that a judge is tied to McLaren," Alpine principal Flavio Briatore said Friday, according to Andrew Benson of BBC Sport.
Briatore said "McLaren gave two, three McLaren cars" to one of the judges in 2018 at a charity auction.
The FIA court of appeal has refuted Briatore's claim.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella also took issue with the remarks, calling them "quite insulting."
