Pierre Gasly stormed to a sensational pole position at the Italian Grand Prix, beating George Russell by less than a tenth of a second at Monza.
It is the Frenchman’s first pole in F1, his nation’s first since Jean Alesi for Benetton at the same venue in 1997, and Alpine’s first since the team rebranded from Renault five years ago.
Oscar Piastri was third-fastest at the Temple of Speed, ahead of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton, who rounded out the top five.
Ferrari was extremely lucky in Q2, with Leclerc and Hamilton narrowly escaping being knocked out. The former was just eight thousandths of a second quicker than Gabriel Bortoleto in P11, and the latter just a single millisecond.
Yuki Tsunoda, on his second weekend back in F1 as part of the downstream implications of Isack Hadjar’s wrist injury, suffered a Q1 exit, after an interrupted start to his session due to a fuel leak on his Racing Bulls car.
Liam Lawson, in turn deputising in the Red Bull, encountered traffic on his final run in Q2, which consigned the New Zealander to an early elimination, even though he will start from the back after power unit component changes in his RB22 anyway. However, it did prevent him from giving Max Verstappen a tow in the final section of qualifying.
Specifically, it was Piastri that Lawson was potentially impeded by, for which the Australian will be investigated, and he could face a subsequent grid penalty.
Aston Martin’s torrid season continued. Despite recent chassis upgrades and power unit updates from Honda, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll found themselves over half a second slower than the Cadillacs.
Check out the full qualifying results for the 2026 F1 Italian Grand Prix from Monza below!