Gasly and Alpine stun Mercedes to take Italian GP pole
Pierre Gasly claimed a shock pole position for the Alpine Formula 1 team in Italian Grand Prix qualifying at Monza, beating George Russell's Mercedes to the top spot.
The recently upgraded Alpine looked top-10 fast through practice but no one was expecting it to be a pole threat come qualifying.
Yet Gasly was super quick from the earliest runs in Q1, where he was fastest of all and team-mate Franco Colapinto was fourth.
Q2 was slightly tougher, where Gasly ended up fourth behind Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes and the two McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, while Colapinto slipped to eighth.
But in the top-10 shootout Gasly came back into the picture, lapping just 0.071s behind Russell's Mercedes on the first Q3 runs, and placing third behind Piastri's McLaren.
And on the final runs, even though Russell found 0.083s thanks to a tow from Max Verstappen, Gasly found more by following a Ferrari to claim his first pole position in F1 by 0.06s.
Piastri locked up at the first chicane on his final Q3 run, but his first lap was still good enough for third - though questions remain as to whether he may be penalised for impeding Liam Lawson's Red Bull in Q2.
The Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were fourth and fifth, after narrowly avoiding Q2 elimination, where Gabriel Bortoleto's Audi almost eliminated Hamilton and was only 0.008s slower than Leclerc.
Verstappen's Red Bull rounded out the top six, ahead of championship leader Antonelli, who sacrificed his Q3 to aid Russell's pole bid.
Antonelli will drop to the back of the grid thanks to taking a new engine for this weekend.
Colapinto was eighth in the second Alpine, ahead of Norris, whose final Q3 lap was compromised by Piastri's Turn 1 lock-up - robbing Norris of a lap-long tow.
Arvid Lindblad completed the top 10 for Racing Bulls, just 0.03s down on the 2025 world champion.
Bortoleto missed out on Q3, just 0.001s down on Hamilton's Ferrari, ruing a slide in the middle of the Ascari chicane, but he will anyway start 10th thanks to Antonelli's grid penalty.
Ollie Bearman's Haas, Nico Hulkenberg's Audi, the compromised Red Bull of Lawson, the Williams of Carlos Sainz and Esteban Ocon's Haas were the other cars eliminated in Q2.
In Q1 it was Yuki Tsunoda's Racing Bulls and Alex Albon's Williams that joined the expected Cadillacs and Aston Martin-Hondas in being eliminated.
Tsunoda was told to calm down on team radio after the session, while Albon was thanked by Williams for helping tow Sainz into Q2.
Valtteri Bottas was only 0.008s slower than Albon's Williams in the battle at the back, where Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin, which didn't make a second run in Q1, was more than half a second slower than Sergio Perez's Cadillac as energy-starved Monza brutally exposed the upgraded Honda engine's remaining power shortfall.
Qualifying result
1 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) 1m21.786s
2 George Russell (Mercedes) +0.060s
3 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +0.180s
4 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.218s
5 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +0.225s
6 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.284s
7 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +0.307s*
8 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +0.434s
9 Lando Norris (McLaren) +0.470s
10 Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) +0.500s
11 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) +0.008s to Q3
12 Ollie Bearman (Haas) +0.247s
13 Nico Hulkenberg (Audi) +0.263s
14 Liam Lawson (Red Bull) +0.305s*
15 Carlos Sainz (Williams) +0.937s
16 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +0.938s
17 Yuki Tsunoda (Racing Bulls) +0.289s to Q1
18 Alex Albon (Williams) +0.740s*
19 Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) +0.748s
20 Sergio Perez (Cadillac) +0.979s
21 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +1.534s
22 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +1.756s
*denotes drivers with grid penalties
