Pierre Gasly says he wants to fight at the front and knows he has what it takes to go up against the F1 drivers at the front of the grid.
Having had his chance at Red Bull early on, Gasly has been fighting in the midfield for long since the departure from the front-running F1 team. He scored a win and podium with AlphaTauri (now Visa Cash App RB) and also Alpine, but it has mostly been at odd occasions.
He hasn’t got the chance to consistently fight at the front. With the move to Alpine, he had high hopes to be fighting at the front driving for a works team. But he never got that chance, owing to the French manufacturer’s power unit, which has been down on power against its rivals.
In combination, they haven’t been able to develop a car which could have fought at the front either. This is left Gasly frustrated, who has shown grit and determination to score a good result whenever possible. The 2025 F1 season was a prime example when he scored all the 22 points.
He is at that stage of his career where he wants to fight at the front of the field and he knows he can take on the challengers as well. “I don’t enjoy being in the position I’m in at the moment,” admitted Gasly to media. “I know I will enjoy being at the front of the field. Even if the racing is crap, you’ve still got to be the best driving the car.
“I think if you look over a full career, I’m sure guys like Alonso or Lewis can say, back in 2007, they used to drive the car in a very different way than they used to do in 2014, when the new engine came in. It’s different than what they did in 2021. So I think as a driver, you’ve always got to adapt to these sort of regulation changes. Would it make racing a lot better?
“I think the cars gone by actually brought quite a lot of good action over the past few years. We’ve had some great battles. Nonetheless, Qatar was probably – as much as I love the track and I love the place – one of the most boring and annoying races from a racing point of view. So there are many, many factors to take into consideration.
“But if you ask me, I just want to be at the front of the field. I’ve been in F1 long enough. I’ve had a few podiums, I’ve had a race win, but I know from a competitive point of view, I want to be fighting with those guys that I see at the front, which I know I can fight,” summed up Gasly, who will enter his ninth F1 season in 2026 and is among the veterans of the sport now.
Here’s teams’ tier system
Here’s drivers’ tier system
Here’s Franco Colapinto on having to work hard on sprint weekends
Here’s Pierre Gasly on expectations from F1 2025
