How Gasly and Alpine were left mystified by a surprise return to the points in Brazil
The Sao Paulo GP weekend saw some unusual swings in form, and perhaps none was more surprising than a return to the points for Pierre Gasly and Alpine for the first time since the Frenchman finished P10 at Spa back in July.
In the seven races that followed Gasly managed only 19th, 17th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 19th and 15th, usually starting from close to the back and running a long opening stint in the hope that a red flag or safety car might help out.
In Brazil, where he finished third behind team mate Esteban Ocon in the previous year’s wet race, things suddenly clicked, and neither he nor the team could explain quite why.
He scored a point in the sprint and then another in the main race – not much in the grand scheme of things, but a useful boost for a team that has tumbled to last in the pecking order and which has long been focussed on 2026.
Whether those points turn out to be the last ever logged in F1 by a Renault power unit remains to be seen over the final three weekends of this season.
From 13th on the grid for the Interlagos sprint Gasly moved up to P8, helped by some attrition ahead and by a crucial move on Lance Stroll in the closing laps.
“I’m gutted they didn’t show it on the TV, because it was two nice launches into Turn 1,” he said when I asked him about his progress. “And I knew the points were right in front of me, and I would have not slept tonight if I would have not tried something.
“So my first one, my first move, was quite optimistic, and he managed to actually get it back on the exit. But I wasn’t going to let him go away with that point!”
On Saturday afternoon Gasly ran through the first two qualifying sessions in P2 and P6, before earning P9 in a closely bunched middle order in Q3.
“We were on the wrong side of the pack, let’s say,” he noted. “I think seven-hundredths gets us to P5. It is what it is. At the end of the day, I look at where we were last week, the week before, last month, two months ago.
“I think we can be extremely happy to be seven-hundredths from P5 and four-tenths from pole position. If someone would have told me that coming into the weekend, I would have taken it.”
This was Gasly’s first appearance in Q3 since Silverstone, and he was as surprised as anyone by the surge in form.
“Much bigger things to understand,” he said. “At the moment, we’ve just got to dig, because it’s not like the car is very different than it has been. From the first lap, it just felt like a completely different car, more similar to what I’ve had when the car was at best this year in Bahrain, or this type of track.
“So bigger picture, a lot to understand. I must say on my side at the moment I’m more enjoying session after session and actually feeling like I’ve got a car that I can race with and drive more the way I want to drive.”
He had no explanation as to why things had clicked: “There are few ideas. But the reality is we don’t fully know. I don’t want to say anything which might not be true. I know the guys are looking very deeply into it, and it’s quite complicated, but we need some answers. At the moment, we have a lot of questions, not many answers.
“Hopefully we will have some more in the coming weeks. I think track characteristic plays quite a big factor. But I cannot believe it’s only down to that. So we’ve got to understand it.”
Starting P9 boded well for Sunday’s GP. In the end he gained a spot from the retirement of Charles Leclerc, while losing out to Max Verstappen and Nico Hulkenberg, on the way to 10th place.
“Very happy, because last time we scored points on a Sunday was in Spa before the summer break,” he said. “And it’s been a very long walk in the middle of nowhere for three months. A strong weekend, Q3, one point in the sprint, one point today.”
Nevertheless he admitted that he wanted more from the race: “If I’ve got to be honest, I’m a little disappointed with today. I took a great start, managed to pass Bearman, managed to pass Russell. Both occasions, I’m losing the position in the straights, which would have put us in a much better track position for the rest of the race.
“I managed to dive twice in the inside of Hadjar, but every time in the straight to Turn 4, he got past me very easily. I feel like I had quite a lot more pace, I was just not really able to fully like show it.
“At the end, it’s one point, and I’m definitely not going to complain about it, because I would have taken it every single day since three months. I’m sure we’ll have a look if we could have done any anything different. But I do feel we had some more pace than we were able to show.”
He took an aggressive approach as one of the eight drivers to use the soft initially, in contrast to recent races where he has started on a hard tyre and run as long as possible,
“This is what you do when you’re far off the pace and trying to bank on a red flag or safety car at some point. Today I just wanted to use the pace, which unfortunately is not what I was able to do. I think I struggled more on the soft.
“We fitted the new medium on the second stint, hoping to go a bit longer. But unfortunately, we got pushed to box quite early. So I did a short stint on the new tyre, and a longer one on the used.”
Despite some frustration Gasly was happy to have a car that he could push to the limit, which hasn’t been the case of late.
“I was able to drive in a way that I want. The car was responding to what I expect the car to do, and we had a lot more potential. In quali yesterday, to be less than five-tenths from the McLaren knowing the package we have, it just showed there was something like we’re actually very competitive in the corners, and I was pleased the car was responding to my input, and there was nothing really very strange.
“So it’s what I expect from a race car. One point is not going to change my life, nor the life of the team. But I think it’s just important in the bigger picture to understand where that entire potential came from, and where it was the last few weekends.
“Everything’s got to be analysed. It’s rarely down to one single factor. It’s probably a lot of small things added together which make a bigger difference. And it was night and day was what I felt since three months.”
We now head to Las Vegas, another quirky track where last year Gasly followed up his Interlagos podium by qualifying third, only to retire with an early engine failure.
“We have no idea why we’re fast here, and we have no idea why we were so slow in Mexico,” he said. “We do have small ideas, but not enough to say that’s going to be fine. Last year I qualified third in Vegas.
“I will not put money on third from me in Vegas this year, but Max was nowhere yesterday, today he was third. Usually we’re nowhere, and we were strong the whole weekend. So it’s quite a few things to work on.”