Racing
© Jonathan Borba
Pierre Gasly said Alpine is still chasing a fundamental problem on his side of the garage that has been present since Miami, even after he salvaged eighth place at the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Frenchman’s result in Montreal kept up what has been a productive start to 2026 on paper. Gasly has scored points in four of the first five grands prix, added a Sprint point in Miami, and sits eighth in the standings as the highest-placed driver outside Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. But he said the latest finish masked a car he no longer feels able to exploit.
After qualifying in Montreal, Gasly said: “I don't really know what's going on since Miami, but at the moment on my side we're absolutely nowhere.” He added: “It was an easy top 10, the car was quite consistent, but I couldn't brake, couldn't turn in, couldn't accelerate. There was no grip.”
Gasly said the issue has been there “from the first lap of practice in Miami” and insisted the team can already see it in the numbers. “On the data, there is quite clearly stuff which does not make sense, but we haven't found the fixes yet,” he said. He also rejected the idea that it was a simple setup matter, saying the change in behavior feels more fundamental and has clearly hurt his low-speed traction.
That concern shaped Alpine’s Canada weekend. After Gasly qualified 19th for the Sprint, the team carried out what it described as a technical exclusion procedure, broke parc fermé and made a rollback on his car by reinstalling the old floor instead of the new underfloor introduced that weekend. That left Gasly on a hybrid specification while team-mate Franco Colapinto ran strongly with the full package.
Steve Nielsen, Alpine general manager, told Autosport that Gasly “was not satisfied with the balance of the car throughout the whole weekend” and said his car was lacking downforce relative to the other Alpine. Nielsen said the team does not yet know why, even if the problem appeared to fade in the race, and that the cars now need a deeper examination back at Enstone.
Gasly described eighth place as a “damage-limitation” race after climbing from 14th on the grid. “We just need to get back to the factory, understand a bit more because there is performance, but since Miami, clearly something has changed in terms of extracting potential, and I need to get it back,” he said.
The timing matters for Alpine because Colapinto has had the upper hand recently. Gasly has been beaten by his team-mate in the last four qualifying sessions, including Sprint weekends, and across the two most recent grands prix Gasly has scored five points to Colapinto’s 14. Until Alpine explains the imbalance on Gasly’s car, one of the team’s strongest starts in years risks being shaped as much by a hidden technical problem as by its outright pace.