Alpine‘s Pierre Gasly enters the 2026 F1 Monaco GP weekend with newfound confidence in the team’s progress. As the sport enters the European leg of the season, the Frenchman reflected on the upgrades brought and the team’s performance thus far compared to the midfield.
Gasly also shared his insights on how the 2026 F1 Monaco GP will differ from previous years, now with a 22-car grid as well as the new technical regulations.
Gasly on Alpine’s progress thus far
In the opening rounds of the 2026 F1 season, Alpine had shown drastic improvement in pace compared to the season prior. The French team placed itself in a position to comfortably compete with the upper midfield with its 2026 challenger, the A526.
Prior to the 2026 F1 Japanese GP, Gasly had reflected that he believed the team should stop using the midfield as a benchmark to measure Alpine’s progress. Instead, the Frenchman implored Alpine to evaluate the A526’s performance against the top four teams of Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren.
Despite back-to-back challenging weekends in Miami and Montreal, Pierre Gasly expressed his confidence that Alpine is progressing in the right direction. He explained that outperforming the midfield and mirroring the top teams was the overarching goal for the team.
However, the 30-year-old then clarified that Alpine’s primary objective for the 2026 F1 Monaco GP, following Miami and Montreal, was to maximise the A526’s potential and get back on track.
“I think big picture, it definitely is the case. Mid to long term, I think short term it’s on our side just to get the performance fully out of the package, and the last two weekends being slightly compromised by different reasons. And yeah, we’ve got a lot of things to test this weekend, because we can see clearly stuff on my side of the garage that’s not really working the way they should.
“So yeah, I think first priority is to get back 100%, managing to extract 100% of the package we have.“
Gasly reflects that narrowing the gap will be tough
Gasly also explained that closing the gap in performance to the rest of the grid will be a challenge due to the ever-evolving nature of the competition’s performance on track as teams bring in new upgrades to their challengers each weekend.
He referenced Red Bull’s improvement in pace following Suzuka to further prove his point. The 2020 Italian GP winner beat Max Verstappen on merit that weekend.
Nonetheless, the Frenchman believes that the upgrades Alpine brings with them in the following weekends will allow them to see an improvement in pace.
“And then that gap, I mean it’s consistently going to evolve through the year. If I look at the last two races, you could argue that maybe Red Bull, who was the closest team to us in Suzuka, made quite a big jump.
“In the last few weekends, the gap has probably grown with the fourth team. But then yeah, the target still should be the same. A couple of new parts coming in the next weeks, and hopefully that can put us back on track.”
How the 2026 F1 Monaco GP differs from previous years
The Circuit de Monaco is notorious for its extremely narrow layout, with sections such as the Tabac corner measuring as narrow as 8 meters wide. Prior to the 2026 F1 season, overtaking and wheel-to-wheel driving were already notoriously difficult with the 20-car grid. Now with the addition of Cadillac on the grid, 22 cars will race the 2026 F1 Monaco GP.
When speaking in a print media session on Thursday, Gasly reflected that it was too early to tell how the expanded grid would affect the 2026 F1 Monaco GP, but urged everyone to keep “an open mind”.
“I think you’re 24 hours early for that question, I mean. We’ve got to come this weekend with an open mind. I think it’s going to feel different to what we’ve had the past few years.”
The 2026 technical regulations could improve racing in Monaco
The Frenchman also shared his view on how the new technical regulations will make the 2026 F1 Monaco GP different. The Alpine driver shared how the significantly smaller cars could instead improve racing at the Circuit de Monaco.
He then explained how the FIA’s decision to remove active aerodynamic zones from the circuit should make racing easier. Nonetheless, he expects the cars to be harder to drive.
“It can only go in the right direction. The fact that the cars are narrower, lighter. Also, what they’ve decided to do with the energy around this track, I think, makes things slightly more simple in terms of driving and just extracting the best out of the power of the engine. There won’t be any sort of management because we’ll have plenty of energy around the racetrack.
“And then, yeah, we have a lot less load on the car. So over the bumps, all these high speed corners, et cetera, I expect it to be slightly more challenging.“
Gasly is expecting an eventful 2026 F1 Monaco GP
Gasly is also expecting plenty of incidents during the 2026 F1 Monaco GP. The Circuit de Monaco is known for being unforgiving of mistakes due to the lack of run-off areas and the track’s narrow nature.
The Frenchman is not looking forward to Q1 of Qualifying on Saturday due to traffic concerns.
“But yeah, I think we’ve seen people struggling on braking more than in the previous years. A lot of front locking, people running wide in Canada in the previous weekends. That’s a track where you can’t afford it. So I think it will be slightly eventful in that sense. And I see it as a good opportunity to grab something bigger than we can.
“Yeah, I’m not looking forward to that Q1. Yeah, I mean, we’ve been discussing about it for already quite a long time. So I can’t come up with any rational option that would make it great for everybody.
“So yeah, I think most important is just not to get trapped and just have a banker because we have the performance to definitely go through.”
