In a parallel universe, Pierre Gasly is a professional football player often daydreaming about how far he could have gone in racing, if he had only continued his career in karting. In this universe, however, the French F1 driver every so often wonders if he could be playing for his favourite club, Paris Saint-Germain, had he made a different decision in his teenage years.
If you follow Pierre Gasly on Instagram, you know the 28 year old from Rouen is a huge fan of football. ("Don’t write 'soccer'," Gasly’s manager Guillaume Le Goff jokingly warned me.) The number on Gasly’s car, 10, is an homage to legendary French footballer Zinedine Zidane, who wore it for much of his international career. Gasly regularly strolls the paddock in football shirts, including Paris Saint-Germain’s and the French national team’s. He organizes matches played with Alpine colleagues to blow off steam after a long day at the track (they'll play in a 30,000-seat stadium in Mexico City, Alpine's press officer tells me). And in the ultimate fan move, Gasly became part owner of FC Versailles, a semi-pro club in France’s third-tier league, this past March.
Gasly started playing football at age 5. "I loved it," he tells me with a huge smile on his face. "Honestly, I’m still dreaming about it. The sport itself, actually playing ball and being with my teammates. And the whole atmosphere of being with your team, going to places and challenging other teams from other cities. I loved every single moment of it."
"Even this morning I was saying: I think the day that I retire from F1, I’ll enter a veteran team or an old men’s club just to play. Because it’s really a big, big passion of mine."
Before Alpine’s PR lead snatched Gasly’s ball and pulled him away for another interview, we talked about investing in a pro team, being forced to choose between his two loves as a teenager, and having a life outside Formula 1.
You told me once that you had a “good level” when you played football as a kid. What would you qualify as a “good level”?
Well, I clearly lost it! [Ed note: Gasly’s attempts to show off his football skills shortly before the interview did not quite rise to “a good level”.] But back then, I was good with the ball. We went to the French Cup and did well in the qualifiers for just a small club.
One day we went to the formation in Auxerre, which at the time was the winner of the French championship. And they had a very famous manager back then, Guy Roux, who I got to meet. And I got in the selection for the French academy.
I always used to run a lot. I was a winger. Until 11 I was playing half pitch, and as a winger I was going from attack to defense, attack to defense. So, actually that was really good for me, because I built up a very, very good cardio. I was putting as much effort in karting as in football.
When you were 6 years old, you started karting as well. How did you manage football, karting, and school?
So when I was 6 or 7 — I can’t remember exactly — the school actually offered my parents [the opportunity] for me to jump a year, because I had very good grades and they estimated that I could go a year ahead of what I was. And I think my parents were quite smart to say: “Well, we rather want him to stick [to his current year] and have it easy at what he does now at school, because that will free more time for him to do sports.” I could dedicate the rest of my time to karting and football. And I could manage it pretty well.
When I started to do karting competitions at 9, then it started to become more complicated with football. When I was 10 or 11, I started to miss a few practices here and there. And because of the races, I couldn’t go to all of the games. I remember I came for a game on Sunday and the coach was not happy that I was focusing more on karting than on football. And he told me as a punishment he would put me in the second team. And I said: “Fuck that, I’m not playing for the second team.” And I just stopped on that day.
That must have been a hard decision.
I said to myself: OK, I basically need to choose. But in my mind it was already clear. Even though they are my two biggest passions, my love for karting and racing was a touch bigger. And also, I think I was slightly more competitive in karting than in football — the first was bringing me more trophies. It got to a point where I could see I couldn’t do both at my best. And I wasn’t fine with that.
Are there any things you’ve learned in football that you benefit from in motorsport? You mentioned the cardio...
Cardio is definitely one. But also team spirit and being supportive of each other. In football sometimes you’ve got to make an extra effort to compensate for a teammate’s mistake. Or sometimes you do a mistake and then someone needs to have your back. And then, in the locker room, even if you are kids, you start building bonds between each other and you understand that your best games are actually the ones when there is a nice synergy between everyone.
To a bigger scale in F1, it’s the same, you know. When we are in the engineering room, it’s like a football locker room. The only difference is that everyone is dressed up in the engineering room. But also in Formula 1, you’ve got to get everyone together and very united as a team, and you’ve got to be very transparent and honest, and you’ve got to have everybody working towards the same target. So I think that team mentality was very good to have from a young age.
Karting is more individual. At the time it was only my dad and myself. So you’re not really looking after a team behind you. But on Wednesday, I would go to a game or practice and then I’d be with other kids and I had to understand that I needed to fit in and have that team spirit.
And also, sport in general just brings that structure in your life. Like, practice is at six… you have to be there at six. You have to do every exercise, follow the process and do the practice to get better and stronger. So when you’re a kid — you don’t necessarily see it then — but it does bring some structure to your work, which is essential in whatever you do later on.
"I need more than just Formula 1 in my life to get me mentally balanced and
in a happy place."
Earlier this year you decided to invest in FC Versailles. How did that come about?
As a big football fan, I’ve always somehow wanted to be involved in the sport. Obviously, I wasn’t going to be involved as a player. But I always had in the back of my head that if one day an attractive offer would come up, I would find a way to be involved.
The owner who took over FC Versailles last year reached out to me at the end of last year because he saw that I was so into football — that I was going to a lot of games and watching a lot of football. They explained to me their project, their vision for the club, and what they wanted to do and how. And then they asked me if I was keen on coming and joining them on this project.
Obviously, football is a very complex sport. But given my knowledge of my sport and my experience of working in a high performance environment, they were quite keen to understand the standards of F1 and how things work here, and somehow use some of that knowledge and introduce some of those standards at the club.
And as an athlete, I think this is also an area where I bring them a lot. I try to put myself in the player’s position. I can say: as an athlete, me personally, I need this and this and this to be looked after. Where, generally speaking, owners probably don’t look so much at those things. They probably look at it more as a business, so they sometimes miss a little bit of the player side of things. But when you know how you can extract the maximum out of the guys, that actually brings performance on the pitch. So it’s a lot of interesting conversations. And a different angle to football, which I didn’t have before but which I actually enjoy a lot.
I think value-wise, we really matched. I had a very good connection with the two other owners [Alexandre Mulliez and Fabien Lazare]. And then I was like, OK, that’s definitely a very attractive project. And more for the long term as well. I need more than just Formula 1 in my life to get me mentally balanced and in a happy place. And this is just something that I love following, besides Formula 1.
Obviously, I’m not involved on a day-to-day basis, but every week we have a catch-up. And if they are playing, I watch the game. I’m very proud to be part of it.
What are your ambitions for FC Versailles? Can it be a success story like Wrexham A.F.C., which climbed from the fifth division in the English football league system to the third-tier League One?
I mean, we are in the third division. The target for the short term is to get into the second division, which is obviously very difficult because it’s very competitive. Football is so big, you have a lot of clubs with big budgets and big structures. So it’s a good challenge, but we’re not going to hide from it. For us, it’s clear that we want to get in that second division. And mid-to-long term, to get in the first division, which is a big jump that hopefully in a few years time we’ll be able to make.
Speaking of Wrexham: actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, who bought the club in 2020, joined the Alpine F1 team as investors last year. Did you seek their advice before investing in FC Versailles?
No, but I clearly got inspired by that story with Ryan and Wrexham. As a football fan, I obviously followed his journey with Wrexham. It’s a similar type of story with me. [Football] is not my industry. And I’m going in with some other people who are not actually coming from football as well. And yeah, I’d love to have a Wrexham versus Versailles friendly game at some point!
Have you also considered making a documentary series about FC Versailles, like “Welcome to Wrexham”?
So that’s in the pipeline, because yeah — you need exposure, you need sponsors. The more money you have, the better infrastructure you have, the better performance you’ll get out of the guys. So we have to promote our team the best way possible. But to be fair, there is a great team looking after it and they’re doing a very good job. Hopefully the ambitions and the results can follow each other.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
