Pierre Gasly endured the worst finishing position of his full-time Formula 1 career, yet arguably produced his best campaign from a performance point of view. The 29-year-old finished 18th in the standings with just 22 points, yet that can only be put down to the torrid Alpine that he was given as the French outfit slumped to bottom in the constructors’ championship.
Its A525’s main weakness was in the slow, bumpy tracks hence Gasly qualifying last in Singapore, while the situation also wasn’t helped by the Renault power unit which is just weak compared to rival suppliers like Mercedes and Ferrari.
Alpine stopping car development as early as June to focus on the 2026 regulation change therefore came as no surprise, so Gasly doing the job that he did whilst in the face of adversity was commendable.
In his eighth full season of the championship, the Frenchman took on the role of team leader following the departure of Esteban Ocon with rookie Jack Doohan starting the year in the sister Alpine.
Yet Doohan struggled big time, failing to score in the opening six rounds compared to seven points for Gasly after P7 in Bahrain and P8 in the Miami sprint. And it was kind of the same thing all year really, because after those six rounds Doohan was replaced by fellow rookie Franco Colapinto who endured similar struggles, while Gasly just got on with it and maximised what he had.
There was eighth in Barcelona, sixth at Silverstone, 10th at Spa and Interlagos and not to forget, arguably the most impressive of them all, 10 Q3 appearances - or 11 if one counts sprint weekends.
Gasly could therefore be the unsung hero of the 2025 season. Well, unsung outside of his own team because everybody at Alpine knows the worth of the 2020 Monza race winner, especially for how understanding he has been of the situation, never putting up a fuss.
“Pierre is a very good driver,” said Alpine boss Steve Nielsen at the Abu Dhabi finale. “He's a known quantity which has been terrifically important with us, especially when you have young drivers, you need a solid reference point and we have that with Pierre.
“He is very good at remaining motivated even in times when it would be easy to become despondent. It's not nice coming here and going through all this work and lining up at the back, unfortunately we're doing that again today and we all hate it, we all want to be in a better place.
"But Pierre has always remained positive, he knows that we're on this other journey, he knows that this year the pain we're taking is about 2026 and he is the first to spread that message either from the cockpit or personally in between the teams. So he believes in it and it falls to us to give him what he's sacrificed this year for.”
So much so that early September saw Gasly extend his Alpine contract through to the end of 2028 when, to be equipped with a Mercedes power unit, the French outfit should be much stronger.
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