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Gasly beat Russell by 0.060 for his maiden pole and Alpine's first ever. Antonelli and Albon then took power unit penalties, so the grid is not the qualifying order.
Pierre Gasly has taken pole for the Italian Grand Prix with a 1:21.786, beating George Russell by 0.060 seconds. It is his first pole in Formula 1, and the first in Alpine's history.
It happened at Monza, which is the circuit where Gasly won his only Grand Prix, in 2020.
It also ends the defining pattern of the 2026 season. Mercedes had taken ten of the first twelve poles. They have now taken ten of thirteen.
Every pole time of the 2026 season in one table, with the average speed each lap was run at. Monza's 1:21.786 is the fastest lap of the year. Monaco's is not the slowest.
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gasly | Alpine | 1:21.786 | |
| 2 | Russell | Mercedes | 1:21.846 | +0.060 |
| 3 | Piastri | McLaren | 1:21.966 | +0.180 |
| 4 | Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:22.004 | +0.218 |
| 5 | Hamilton | Ferrari | 1:22.011 | +0.225 |
| 6 | Verstappen | Red Bull | 1:22.070 | +0.284 |
| 7 | Antonelli | Mercedes | 1:22.093 | +0.307 |
| 8 | Colapinto | Alpine | 1:22.220 | +0.434 |
| 9 | Norris | McLaren | 1:22.256 | +0.470 |
| 10 | Lindblad | Racing Bulls | 1:22.286 | +0.500 |
Then Bortoleto 11th, Bearman 12th, Hulkenberg 13th, Lawson 14th, Sainz 15th and Ocon 16th out of Q2, with Tsunoda 17th, Albon 18th, Bottas 19th, Perez 20th, Alonso 21st and Stroll 22nd eliminated in Q1.
The entire top ten is covered by half a second. At a circuit lapped in eighty-one seconds, that is the closest qualifying session of the season.
This is not a one-car fluke, which is what makes it interesting.
Franco Colapinto qualified eighth in the other Alpine, and he set the fastest first sector of anybody in the session, a 26.779. Gasly's own first sector was 26.817. The two quickest opening sectors in Monza qualifying both belonged to Alpine.
That points at a car genuinely suited to this circuit rather than a single inspired lap. Alpine ran the lowest-drag configuration on the grid and it paid at the only track on the calendar where that trade is nearly free.
The telemetry supports it too. Gasly was at full throttle for 78% of his lap, the highest figure of the top seven, against 73% for Russell and 68% for Piastri. He also carried 211 km/h through the Parabolica and 118 km/h through the first chicane, both the highest of that group.
One result inside the result, and it explains why the timing screens looked odd.
Kimi Antonelli set a 1:21.882 in Q2, which was faster than everybody except Gasly's eventual pole lap. In Q3, when it counted, he managed only a 1:22.093 and starts seventh.
Had he repeated his Q2 lap he would have been on the front row. This is a useful reminder about qualifying data: a session's fastest lap is not the same as the qualifying result, because only the Q3 lap sets the grid for the top ten. Any table that ranks drivers by their best lap of the whole session will put Antonelli third, and it will be wrong.
Take the fastest sector from anyone in the session and the theoretical best is 1:21.456.
Gasly's pole lap was 0.330 off that, and the three sectors came from three different teams. On a lap this short, with a tow available to anyone who can find one, nobody put a complete lap together.
Final practice produced 21 deleted lap times, sixteen of them for track limits and ten of those at Turn 1. We wrote at the time that Turn 1 would decide somebody's afternoon.
Qualifying produced two. Norris lost a Q1 lap and Piastri lost one, both for track limits at Turn 1, and neither mattered to the final order.
That is what a grid full of drivers on their final run looks like when the stakes are real: the same corner that swallowed half the field in practice was tidied up almost completely. Our season-wide count of deletions is in F1 track limits explained.
Every stewards' investigation from the session itself was closed with no further action, including a Q1 incident between Antonelli and Lawson, a Q2 matter involving Lawson, and a pit lane incident between Piastri and Hulkenberg.
The starting grid is still not the qualifying order, and the reason has nothing to do with qualifying.
Both penalties were applied for taking new power unit components beyond the season's allocation, so neither shows up anywhere in the qualifying timing data.
Kimi Antonelli carries a 30-place penalty for a fifth internal combustion engine, a fourth control electronics unit and a fourth energy store. He qualified seventh and starts from the back.
Alexander Albon carries a 20-place penalty for a fifth internal combustion engine and a fourth control electronics unit. He qualified eighteenth. The two of them share the back row.
That is a costly afternoon for Mercedes in particular: Antonelli set the second fastest lap of the entire session, a 1:21.882 in Q2, and will start last.
| Grid | Driver | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gasly | Alpine |
| 2 | Russell | Mercedes |
| 3 | Piastri | McLaren |
| 4 | Leclerc | Ferrari |
| 5 | Hamilton | Ferrari |
| 6 | Verstappen | Red Bull |
| 7 | Colapinto | Alpine |
| 8 | Norris | McLaren |
| 9 | Lindblad | Racing Bulls |
| 10 | Bortoleto | Audi |
Everyone who qualified eighth or lower moves up a place, so Franco Colapinto starts seventh and puts both Alpines inside the top seven, and Lando Norris inherits eighth. Behind them Bearman, Hulkenberg, Lawson, Sainz, Ocon and Tsunoda each gain a place, with Bottas, Perez, Alonso and Stroll ahead of the two penalised cars on the back row.
More of the weekend's radio is in the 2026 team radio archive.
The track ran between 51.3C and 56.2C, with air at 33.6C to 34.2C. Final practice had peaked at 54.0C.
Monza is comfortably the hottest surface of the season. When we measured mean track temperature across a full season of qualifying sessions, Monza came out top and Las Vegas came bottom at 14.1C, a range of about 34 degrees. What that does to a car is broken down in the Las Vegas circuit guide.
Every one of the 22 drivers set their best lap on the soft tyre.
Yesterday, off the back of final practice, we published a projection: on 2024 machinery Monza pole was a 1:19.327, and with the 2026 cars running about 3% slower we said a pole "somewhere around 1:21.6 to 1:21.9 would be par".
Pole came in at 1:21.786. The model was right. The driver was not one we would have guessed, and neither would anyone else. The full session that produced that projection is in the Italian GP FP3 results.
The Italian Grand Prix is 53 laps, and it starts with a low-drag Alpine on pole and two Ferraris behind it in front of a Monza crowd.
The Formula Dream app runs a live Dashboard through every session: every car on the circuit map, and a timing tower with lap times, gaps and intervals, tyre compound and age, plus flag and safety car alerts as race control calls them. Monza has produced zero safety cars in three years and is usually a one-stop, so the column that decides this race is the interval, because the tow down the main straight makes a pass possible from further back here than anywhere else. You also get live driver radio as it is broadcast, and every FIA document of the weekend as it is published.
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Pierre Gasly, for Alpine, with a 1:21.786. It is his first pole position in Formula 1 and the first in Alpine's history since the team took that name in 2021.
0.060 seconds over George Russell's Mercedes. Oscar Piastri was third for McLaren at +0.180.
No. This is the first pole for the team under the Alpine name, which it has raced under since the start of the 2021 season.
Because the grid is set by the Q3 lap. Antonelli's Q2 time of 1:21.882 was quicker than his Q3 lap of 1:22.093, and only the Q3 lap counts for the top ten, so he starts seventh despite having set the second fastest lap of the session overall.
Two, both for track limits at Turn 1, by Norris and Piastri. That is a sharp drop from final practice, which produced 21 deletions.
1:21.456, from Colapinto's first sector, Russell's second and Leclerc's third. Gasly's pole lap was 0.330 slower than that.
Russell topped final practice at Monza with a 1:22.219, but the number that will worry everyone is 21 deleted laps in a single hour, most of them at Turn 1.
