Chinese Grand Prix: Alpine back on its feet, Pierre Gasly posts a gritty top-six

An unexpected rebound for Alpine in Shanghai

Pierre Gasly ended his Shanghai weekend with a convincing sixth. It’s a result that validates the hard yards Alpine have been putting in. The Frenchman wiped away the sting from the season opener in Australia, where the A526 was plagued by mechanical gremlins. Shanghai was different. Practice immediately hinted at pace. Qualifying confirmed it — Gasly spent the weekend in the top half of the timesheets and even had the cheek to leapfrog the two Red Bulls on a flying lap.

The safety-car trap

The sprint was a mess for him — he slipped out of the points. Sunday’s main race, though, put things back on track. The Alpine showed stability over long stints and the double retirements for McLaren suddenly cleared space. Gasly started the race fifth and looked comfortable. Then the safety car turned everything on its head. That neutralisation handed a huge gift to Oliver Bearman. The Haas driver cashed in on the bunch-up and a bruising scrap unfolded between the American cars and Alpine on track.

Frustration in front of the press

To the media, Gasly sounded mixed. He was broadly happy with the team’s performance, but the racer in him was annoyed to lose fifth. He blamed a power loss on the restart — a failure out of the final corner that let Bearman through. The battles with Max Verstappen and the Haas drivers then stretched the gap. Gasly burned the last stint on near-qualifying laps to claw time back and still finished only two seconds behind the Brit. Close, but not close enough.

Now they need to prove it wasn’t a one-off

This top-six is a clear break from a painful 2025. Gasly says the squad feels a step up. Qualifying put them only tenths off the McLarens and the early race stints showed genuine resilience against Ferrari. The work now is obvious: keep developing and iron out the nagging issues. Those faults don’t look fatal to Gasly. He’s upbeat about the championship. The big question is whether Shanghai was a sign of real progress or just a circuit-specific blip.

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