Pierre Gasly — 2022 season

Pierre Gasly's 2022 Formula 1 season with Scuderia AlphaTauri was a challenging campaign marked by an uncompetitive AT03 chassis and a series of missed opportunities, culminating in a P14 finish in the Drivers' Championship.

Going in

Gasly entered the 2022 season, the inaugural year of Formula 1's ground-effect era, with a reputation for extracting strong performances from AlphaTauri machinery. Following a successful 2021 where he secured a podium and finished P9 in the standings, expectations were tempered by the significant regulatory overhaul. The new rules, featuring tunnel-floor ground-effect aerodynamics and 18-inch wheels, represented a reset for all teams, and AlphaTauri aimed to build on their consistent midfield presence. Gasly, a driver with a proven ability to adapt, was expected to lead the team's charge through this new technical landscape.

How it played out

The season began with a power unit failure at the Bahrain Grand Prix, a DNF that set an early tone for reliability concerns. While he secured points in Saudi Arabia (P8) and Australia (P9), the AlphaTauri AT03 often struggled for consistent pace, particularly in race trim. A promising P7 grid slot at the Miami Grand Prix ended in a suspension failure, another DNF that underscored the car's fragility. The clear highlight of the year arrived at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Gasly converted a P6 grid start into a strong P5 finish, securing 10 points—his highest single-race haul of the season. This result, however, proved to be an outlier rather than a turning point. The mid-season saw a string of finishes outside the points, including a DNF at Silverstone due to collision damage. Despite a P9 finish at the Belgian Grand Prix and a P8 at Monza from a P5 grid, the car's overall performance meant points were hard to come by. The latter half of the season saw Gasly frequently battling in the lower midfield, often finishing a lap down, as was the case in Spain, Austria, Hungary, Mexico, and Abu Dhabi. This struggle for performance was a stark contrast to his earlier seasons, mirroring some of the challenges faced by drivers like George Russell in his 2019 season with Williams, where car limitations heavily dictated outcomes.

Defining moments

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix stands out as the peak of Gasly's 2022 campaign. His P5 finish demonstrated his capacity to capitalize when the car offered a window of opportunity, navigating the 's demanding layout with precision. Conversely, the early DNFs in Bahrain and Miami, the latter from a strong qualifying position, highlighted the reliability issues that plagued AlphaTauri. These mechanical failures directly impacted his points tally and momentum. Later in the season, a P8 finish at the Italian Grand Prix from a P5 grid start showed flashes of the qualifying pace he could extract, even if race pace often proved more challenging. The overall picture, as available through , indicates a season where individual brilliance was often constrained by the machinery.