Alpine’s struggles with an obese and undercooked automobile at first of 2024 harm Pierre Gasly however, when the A524 began to enhance, the Frenchman shone.
A stretch of 4 points-scoring finishes from Monaco to Austria gave Alpine hope that it might reverse the arrears, but it surely was in a collection of late-season enhancements the place Gasly’s 12 months picked up.
He adopted team-mate Esteban Ocon dwelling in Brazil for an surprising 2-3 end, and continued to star: third on the grid in Las Vegas was wasted with an engine downside, however he rounded the 12 months off with fifth and seventh within the final two races.
Why Gasly is so excessive – and it isn’t recency bias
When Autosport’s top 10 drivers of F1’s 2024 season were listed, there may need been a smidgen of a shock that Pierre Gasly had outranked Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg – with possibly just a few ‘recency bias’ options from these within the crowd.
How might a driver, who was close to the again of the grid for many of the 12 months till Alpine got here good, outrank the winner of two races in 2024? Unthinkable, certainly?

Gasly re-enters the rating simply exterior the highest 20
Picture by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Photos
In actuality, Gasly’s had a superb 12 months – it simply went under-rewarded within the opening two thirds of the 12 months. Keep in mind that Alpine had a automobile that was in all probability round 10kg obese at first of the 12 months, and had loads of downforce lacking, to compound the 35-ish horsepower deficit in its Renault energy unit to the opposite producers. And, when a brand new low-weight, aero-boosting flooring improve was fast-tracked for China, it was Esteban Ocon who obtained it – not Gasly.
The 2 had been considerably evenly matched within the opening few rounds, following their sample in 2023: Ocon held a qualifying benefit, Gasly was higher on Sundays. Even when Gasly received his personal upgraded flooring the 2 remained even however, in Monaco, the image appeared to vary with an obvious switch of vitality from Ocon to Gasly.
When Ocon tried to stuff his automobile previous Gasly at Portier, presumably irritated that his team-mate had discovered a means forward, he virtually took out each Alpine automobiles in a single fell swoop. Gasly survived the assault, Ocon didn’t; fortunately, a pink flag allowed the staff to make sure the only real survivor might get to the top. As such, Gasly claimed a degree for his efforts, no thanks to his team-mate’s efforts.
Alpine then scored factors within the subsequent three races, even when there have been few indications (aside from qualifying seventh and eighth in Spain) that it had the tempo to problem the likes of RB, Haas, and Aston Martin for the ultimate clutch of factors.
Versus Ocon, Mexico was one of many clearest separations between them; Gasly hurled his automobile into Q3 and booked eighth on the grid. And, though Ocon was forward in Brazil, Gasly was with him on the shut of a moist and wild Interlagos race.
But, Gasly charges none of those as his greatest races of the close to, nor any of his constant points-scoring exploits on the finish of the 12 months – as a substitute, he reckons his run to twelfth in Baku was his greatest efficiency of the 12 months.
“Completely nobody seen it and it was in all probability my greatest race of the 12 months,” he associated. “That is System 1 and that is what might be irritating at occasions is I completed that race, I do not assume anybody might have executed a greater lap than I’ve executed for 50 laps in a row there.
“I used to be happy and I mentioned, ‘f***, I am going again dwelling with completely zero factors, 30 seconds from the highest 10.’ It is fairly robust to search out satisfaction in that. However, on the finish of the day, I used to be all the time attempting to return with the identical strategy and get the most effective of what you may have.”

Baku was the scene of what Gasly believed to be his greatest drive of the 12 months, though it got here with no reward
Picture by: Dom Romney / Motorsport Photos
On this article
Jake Boxall-Legge
System 1
Common
Pierre Gasly
Alpine
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