One of the season’s unsung performers has been Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who’s ranked 15th in Pit Debrief’s 2025 Formula 1 Drivers’ Rankings. Gasly’s campaign lacked glory but showed his grit. Finishing 18th in the Drivers’ Championship with 22 points, the Frenchman shouldered the entire weight of Alpine’s aspirations in what became the Enstone squad’s worst-ever season.
Gasly joined the Alpine team in 2023 and with just two years in the French outfit, he took the lead driver status. He fared exceptionally well against both his rookie teammates, as one would expect an established driver and race winner would do. The Frenchman scored 100% of Alpine’s points, making him the sole contributor to a team that limped home 10th in the Constructors’ standings.
Alpine’s A525: Gasly’s biggest rival
From the outset, the Alpine A525 was a deeply compromised package. Hopes for the machine’s revival quickly faded as rivals out-developed the car and Alpine chose to divert resources towards 2026. Gasly became Alpine’s insurance policy against complete embarrassment. The French outfit finished dead last among the works teams, their 22-point haul representing the highest score ever recorded by a last-placed constructor.
Alpine’s A525 was notoriously underwhelming, especially in race trim, and despite that, the Frenchman managed to drag it into Q3 an impressive 11 times. His season, however, was a tale of inconsistency, while there were moments of brilliance, they were often overshadowed by struggles with a car that rarely lived up to expectations.
From Hungary to the Austin GP, his performances dipped significantly, with some of the blame falling squarely on the underperforming machinery. That said, he consistently managed to extract the most from the limited package, even if it wasn’t always enough to maintain a higher position in the standings.
Gasly’s moments of brilliance
Both Gasly and Alpine showed their first real spark in Bahrain. Gasly qualified fifth and was promoted to fourth after penalties, starting ahead of Norris and Verstappen, just 0.040s shy of third. He slipped back in the race but defended bravely against Verstappen for sixth until the last lap before finishing seventh.
Bahrain was Alpine’s first points finish and it seemed to have given some hope to Gasly and the Enstone team. At that stage, the A525 appeared capable of flirting with the lower end of the midfield.
However, that early optimism proved misleading. Alpine’s development curve flattened rapidly, and by mid-season the car had slipped behind every direct rival. Gasly’s points-scoring opportunities became increasingly dependent on attrition, weather or strategic chaos rather than outright pace.
The clearest example of Gasly maximising circumstances came at Silverstone.
Gasly’s 2025 season peaked at the British GP with sixth place. Starting tenth in chaotic wet-dry conditions, he gambled on intermediate tyres as rain arrived and executed a final-lap overtake on Lance Stroll to claim eight points. It represented Alpine’s best result of the year and Gasly’s best race performance of 2025. Races in Brazil and Belgium were decent too.
The Frenchman was largely error-free throughout the season, wringing every last ounce of performance from a car that, at times, looked more like an F2 machine than a genuine F1 contender.
Nightmare weekends for Gasly and Alpine
Outside of the isolated highs, the Gasly’s and Alpine’s season must acknowledge a growing list of underwhelming weekends. The Chinese GP was a particular low point. Gasly qualified 16th, finished just outside the points but was later disqualified due to a technical infringement. While the error was attributed to the team, it still resulted in a wasted weekend and lost momentum during a phase when Alpine could least afford it.
The latter half of the season was defined by decline. With development effectively halted after the summer break, Gasly was often fighting simply to stay off the back row. Races such as Singapore, Mexico and Abu Dhabi underlined Alpine’s regression rather than Gasly’s strengths. He also had races such as Italy and Austria where his performances were far from decent.
In Abu Dhabi, he qualified 19th and finished 19th, a flat ending to a difficult year.
“It’s just a reflection of our performance at this track.”
Gasly himself was candid about the situation as frustration mounted.
“We stopped developing the car months ago. We’ve taken a step back in performance.”
Teammate battles
Gasly faced two rookie teammates in 2025, comprehensively defeating both. Against Jack Doohan across the opening six races, Gasly held a 5-1 qualifying advantage and 4-1 race record. The average qualifying gap of 0.367 seconds (approximately 0.408% of lap time) proved sufficient for Alpine’s management to replace Doohan with Franco Colapinto mid-season.
Colapinto fared marginally better. Gasly outqualified him 13-5 in Grand Prix sessions and achieved a 4-0 record in Sprint qualifying. The race head-to-head finished 11-7 in Gasly’s favour, though the disparity in competitive running was stark: Gasly spent 205 laps in the top ten compared to Colapinto’s 32. Colapinto never scored a point, his best finish being 13th.
However, context matters. Both Doohan and Colapinto were rookies navigating their first full or partial F1 seasons. Gasly, entering his eighth full campaign, should have dominated less experienced teammates.
Outperforming rookie teammates was the minimum expectation for Gasly, not a headline achievement. What elevates his 2025 campaign is that, unlike drivers such as Ocon in similar situations, he fared exceptionally well against teammates, reinforcing his standing as a tier above his midfield peers.
The Mercedes lifeline and 2026 reset
Pierre Gasly’s contract extension through 2028 makes sense only in the context of Alpine’s radical transformation. The team has abandoned its troubled Renault power unit programme, signing a multi-year agreement with Mercedes-Benz High Performance Powertrains running through 2030.
From 2026, Alpine will receive not only Mercedes engines but also gearboxes, freeing Enstone’s technical resources to focus entirely on chassis development. Alpine was hailed to have a very strong aero package this year by drivers like Sainz, but it failed in the powertrain section.
With strong indications that Mercedes may deliver the class-leading power unit for the new era, this shift could finally provide Alpine and Gasly the technical foundation needed to pursue genuine front-running ambitions.
