A Frenchman Redemption: The Renaissance of Pierre Gasly

Pierre Gasly is a French racing driver, currently driving in F1 for the team AlphaTauri. He was born on 7 February 1996 in the French city Rouen. His first race in the highest category of motorsport was at the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix driving for the formerly known Toro Rosso, now called AlphaTauri.

First driving at karting level, Pierre entered competitive karting in 2006 at the age of ten. In this season he finished 15th in the French Minime Championship, however, he did finish 4th the year later. He eventually moved up to the category of French Formula 4 in the year of 2011. He finished third behind his future Eurocup rivals Matthieu Vaxivière and Andrea Pizzitola with seven podiums, including wins at Spa, Albi, and Castellet. Gasly made his GP2 Series debut in 2014 at Monza in support of the Italian Grand Prix, replacing Caterham Racing driver Tom Dillmann who had commitments at another racing series.

However, I am going to focus more on the rise, fall, and then rise again of Pierre's F1 career. Gasly made his Formula One race debut at the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix with Scuderia Toro Rosso, replacing Daniil Kvyat. He finished the Malaysian and Japanese Grands Prix outside the points. Gasly and Hartley became full-time Toro Rosso drivers for the 2018 season. At the Bahrain Grand Prix, Gasly qualified sixth but was promoted to fifth after Lewis Hamilton's penalty. He eventually finished the race in fourth place, earning his first points finish in Formula One. It was looking like an extremely bright future ahead for the Frenchman and a move to the sister team of Red Bull was looking inevitable. Well, sorry for the spoiler, he did in 2019 making the enormous move to one of the top teams in the sport from the last 2 decades.

But, life was not easy at Red Bull. It was a huge step for Pierre and this showed early on. Gasly struggled with the RB15 and was consistently off Verstappen's pace. He finished a lap behind Verstappen at several races and only out-qualified Verstappen on one occasion, the Canadian GP, when Verstappen was hindered by a red flag in qualifying. His best result with Red Bull Racing came at the British Grand Prix where he finished 4th after Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel collided ahead. But his job really came under pressure when he was lapped once again by his teammate at the Hungarian GP. The summer break arrived and Gasly's seat was under massive threat. He was 6th in the championship with 63 points. Nevertheless, it all came crumbling down for Pierre as he was demoted back to Toro Rosso for the rest of the season with Alex Albon replacing him.

Gasly's weekend worsened as one of his closest friends from his childhood was involved in a fatal crash in Formula 2. Anthoine Hubert, also from France, sadly lost his life as a result of an incident at the top of Eau Rouge. This furtherly pushed Pierre towards a dark hole that he didn't deserve to be near. Losing a friend is never easy and for it to happen when you are experiencing a tough patch in life does not make it any easier. Rest in peace Anthoine Hubert.

This tough time did not seem to affect his performances as he was able to soldier on through to the end of the season. One of the most notable moments was his P2 finish at the Brazilian GP. After a high-class drive all race in P4, Pierre capitalised on a collision between Hamilton and Alex Albon. Consequently, Pierre had a drag race to the line with Hamilton for P2, and Gasly came out on top. His relief and emotion were clear through his radio message after the race and a huge weight was lifted off of his shoulders. As he quoted, "This is the best day of my life"

It has only gone up from that point for Gasly. Gasly was retained by Toro Rosso, along with Kvyat, as they rebranded to Scuderia AlphaTauri. Gasly achieved four points finishes in the first seven races of the season. At the 2020 Italian Grand Prix, an early pit stop allowed Gasly to pass several drivers - who had to wait for the pitlane to open during a safety car procedure - and go up to a net third place. As race leader Hamilton entered the pits to serve a penalty and second-placed driver Lance Stroll lost places at the restart, Gasly inherited the lead of the race and held off Carlos Sainz Jr. to take his first win in Formula One, becoming the 109th different race winner and the first French driver to win a Grand Prix since Olivier Panis' victory at the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix, 24 years prior.

Gasly has once again shown his skill in this year's F1 season as he is in 9th place in a struggling team only 17 points off the extremely talented Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren. He is being retained at the team for the 2022 season with the hope that he carries on his quality performances.

He hasn't had the most confident start to his F1 career but it is fair to say that Pierre has had a big redemption arc from the lows of being demoted back to Toro Rosso but then to the highs of 2020 Italian GP. However, Gasly has now cemented his place in F1 and he is a shining star for the future and has without a doubt proven that anything is possible despite some of the worst things imaginable for an F1 driver happening to them. Some of his results have shown how good he is and that it is inevitable that he will win more races in the future.

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