Gasly’s Magic Track
Monza confirms itself as a magic track for Pierre Gasly: on the Brianza circuit in 2020 the Frenchman, then driving for Alpha Tauri, had won his first career GP; today came his first time also in qualifying, with an unexpected but splendid and ‘real’ pole position, since it came in dry track conditions, facing off directly against all the strongest drivers and teams in this Formula 1. An immense satisfaction for him and for Alpine, which on this Saturday also reconnects a thread with its own history, just as France does.
The History of France (and the ‘Enstone team’)
The last pole position for the transalpine country in F1 dated back to 1997 and was won, right at Monza, by Jean Alesi with Benetton, which had its factory right in Enstone and is a direct ancestor of the current Alpine. Evidently the ‘Temple of Speed’ is lucky for the French colors, at least on Saturdays, since the penultimate French pole also dates back to Monza and was also signed by Alesi but this time at the wheel of the Ferrari in 1994.
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Gasly would probably also sign to replicate the result achieved by Alesi 29 years ago: in that Italian GP the Avignon driver was second at the finish, behind David Coulthard’s McLaren and ahead of Heinz-Harald Frentzen’s Williams. Cycles and recurrences for a circuit that represents an icon for F1 and that seems increasingly ‘suitable’ to update the history books of French motorsport.
