F1 qualifying: Pierre Gasly takes shock maiden pole at 2026 Italian GP as Alpine stun Monza

Pierre Gasly produced the biggest qualifying shock of the Formula 1 season on Saturday, snatching his first career pole for the Italian Grand Prix and the first pole in Alpine’s history. The Frenchman beat George Russell by just 0.060 seconds around Monza, with Oscar Piastri third, after a late slipstream shootout that left the usual frontrunners stunned.

Gasly’s 1:21.786 lap came in his ninth full season. He is 10th in the championship, and Alpine sit sixth, so this was no dress rehearsal. Monza has always been kind to him. He won his only Grand Prix here in 2020 with AlphaTauri. This time the pole was earned on raw pace, not a well-timed pit stop.

How the final-lap slipstream fight unfolded

Tows decide Monza. On the first Q3 runs, Mercedes used championship leader Kimi Antonelli to give Russell a slipstream. McLaren did the same for Piastri. Russell went top with 1:21.929, Piastri next, Gasly a close third. The top four were split by seven hundredths.

The last laps were chaos. Piastri ran wide at Turn 1 and ruined Lando Norris’s tow, leaving the defending champion ninth in the session. Gasly timed his run behind Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari and flew over the line. Russell thought he had done enough. He had not.

“Let’s go! Been waiting for that one!” Gasly shouted on the radio.

Afterwards he said: “It was amazing, thank you everyone! It was an incredible quali, and from the first lap in Q1 I felt good in the car. I was trying to chip away a bit every single session, and it felt like a very good lap. It's been nine years, trying to chase and get the opportunity to get pole position. To win my first race, and get my first pole position at Monza, it’s very special.”

Russell was blunt. “I'm disappointed not to get pole, it was a bit messy with Verstappen opening the lap, I did the lap very close, but Pierre and Alpine have been super fast, even from Q1.”

Charles Leclerc and Hamilton lock out row two for Ferrari after Hamilton squeezed into Q3 by 0.001 seconds. Max Verstappen is sixth. Franco Colapinto put the second Alpine eighth.

Kimi Antonelli starts last as the title fight opens

Kimi Antonelli qualified seventh but takes a full set of new engine parts and starts from the back. Mercedes chose Monza because overtaking is easier here. He leads Russell and Hamilton by 59 points, and the team hopes he can climb as high as fifth. Russell, from the front row, will try to cut that gap on Sunday.

Converting pole will be hard. Mercedes look strong over a race distance. Gasly knows that. The job now is to stay in front when the lights go out.

Pole lands a day after Alpine’s Monaco court storm

The result arrived after a bitter paddock row. Before qualifying, the FIA International Court of Appeal rebuked Alpine executive advisor Flavio Briatore over comments about a judge who sat on the panel that stripped Gasly of third place in Monaco.

The ICA, which acts independently of the FIA, said Alpine had every chance to object to the judges and did not.

On track, Gasly answered the only way a driver can. Sunday’s race at the Temple of Speed will show whether the pink car can keep the big guns behind it.