Starting the season with a solid performance, Pierre Gasly continues the positive momentum at the wheel of his Alpine in qualifying of the 2026 F1 Japanese GP.
Gasly claimed P7 with a 1:29.691 in the F1 Japanese GP qualifying session and placed behind the Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari duos, raising hopes for the Sunday race.
A prominent qualifying before the F1 Japanese GP
The Alpine team has been showcasing a promising start to the 2026 season, particularly with their French driver Pierre Gasly. While his teammate Franco Colapinto follows the lead of the French driver from P15 on the grid, Gasly continues to execute, trying to compete with the last couple of years’ top four teams.
During the Friday free practice sessions at the 2026 F1 Japanese GP, the 2020 Italian GP winner was struggling with his car and looked to be towards the end of the midfield.
Overnight, the team worked hard to improve it for the 2026 F1 Japanese GP qualifying session. The modifications were on point as Pierre Gasly expressed his happiness with the car’s performance on Saturday. After posting the 10th fastest time in FP3, he was best of the rest come Q3.
Speaking in the print media pen, he analysed the turnaround.
“After yesterday, definitely not because we’re 15th and 14th in the practice. Really struggling with the car and all this high speed. But yeah, I must say we did a very good job with the team overnight finding solutions to actually put a lot more smoke in the car.
“Today it was, yeah, I had a lot more control. A lot more of my style from FP3. We did a small adjustment for quali. And yeah, best car I’ve had this weekend so far. Managed to just commit on this track, like having a lot of phases of what the car could do.
“It was definitely, I’m not going to say a surprise, but a very good showing from the team to be able to handle that much performance on a track that on paper we were a little worried about.”
A rough Friday for Gasly and Alpine at Suzuka
Suzuka is known for being a high-speed and flowing track. When the front end and tyres do not grip, the car is far from smooth and each sector becomes a struggle on its own.
What Pierre Gasly experienced on Friday was that since Alpine’s front end wasn’t sticking and his tyres were sliding. Consequently, the French driver lost a lot of time in Sector 1 and couldn’t use the car’s energy on the straights later on since it was trying to recharge its battery.
Therefore, the team was determined to find an improved set-up for Gasly before the 2026 F1 Japanese GP qualifying.
“We went very punchy with everything we did and couldn’t manage to get some sort of rotation. So we need to see if that’s long term, that’s probably not really the way we want to go.
“But then overall it was definitely what we needed here at the moment with the package we have. I’m glad that even on such a track we still managed to have a strong performance today. So I think it gives a bit of hope to everyone also going into the season with all different types of tracks.”
Limitations are there but there is no room for pessimism
Asked about whether a new front wing is on the team’s agenda for the upcoming races to solve some issues, Gasly confirmed it is indeed the case.
Nevertheless, the French driver also acknowledges that they have a decent car set-up at the moment, which gives them room not to pursue extreme improvements.
The A526 has its limitations, but it definitely gets the job done at the moment, rivalling and outpacing Red Bull and Audi on Saturday at the F1 Japanese GP.
“Yeah. That’s the plan [front wing coming for Miami].
“It just means we don’t need to take such extreme attempts of direction with the set-up. It gives us a bit more flexibility.
“I think coming into the weekend, Suzuka was quite a big force for us as a team. With the current limitation of the package, we definitely struggled yesterday.
“But today was a really good performance and I felt even better on high speed. Personally I was a little bit more concerned with the quali and in the end it definitely went well.”
