As he enters his tenth season in F1, the Alpine driver says he is finally learning how to balance the expectations of others with asserting himself both on -- and off -- the track
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Just how Pierre Gasly found himself in the VIP section of a Taylor Swift concert with Charles Leclerc two summers ago is seemingly now the stuff of Formula One lore. To hear the Alpine driver tell it though, it was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
“I’m based in Milan and Taylor was in Milan, and I found out that Charles was going [to the show] with his girlfriend, so we ended up watching from the same place together,” Gasly says. “That was the last big concert I went to and it was spectacular.”
Gasly is recounting his VIP story from a VVIP suite inside The Venetian Resort Las Vegas, three days before he takes to the grid for the 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix. If attending the Eras Tour concert was a 2024 highlight, the Sin City stop on the F1 circuit marked an equally big moment for the driver that year, after he qualified a career-best third for the evening race under the lights of the Strip. A few weeks prior, the driver had achieved a memorable Alpine double-podium with then-teammate Esteban Ocon at the São Paulo race in Brazil.
For someone who spends each weekend pulling hairpin turns around a winding asphalt track at 220 miles per hour, Las Vegas has a certain appeal that seemingly caters to his competitive nature. Still, the 29-year-old has yet to hit the jackpot.
“I remember playing some blackjack the first year [F1 was in Vegas] and I left with a loss,” Gasly tells Rolling Stone. “And on top of that, I remember going to the airport and when I opened my bag, I had these $100 and $200 Venetian chips still in my bag. I was like, ‘What the heck am I going to do with that?’ It’s now been two years and they are sitting in my home in a cabinet somewhere.”
Could the driver find those chips from The Venetian and bring them back for good luck? “I’ve got to remember that, because this is one of the biggest races for me,” he replies, nodding in agreement. “I’m usually not a big gambler,” he adds, “though last year, I left Vegas with a bit of profit.”
It seems like things are looking up for the F1 star already.
The youngest of five brothers, Gasly found his confidence through driving, entering the karting circuit at the age of 10, and rising quickly through the ranks to become the European Championship runner-up a few years later. He joined Red Bull’s Junior Program in 2014 – finishing runner-up in Formula Renault 3.5 to Carlos Sainz – and then moved onto the GP2 circuit, winning the 2016 GP2 Series title with Prema Racing. In 2017, Gasly made his F1 debut with Toro Rosso (which became AlphaTauri) and he was promoted to the Red Bull team two years later. Then, back at AlphaTauri, the Rouen native secured his maiden F1 win at the 2020 Italian Grand Prix, making the first win for a French driver in F1 since 1996. Gasly moved to the BWT Alpine Formula One Team in 2023, and has now assumed the role of veteran, leading the charge for Alpine alongside 22-year-old Argentine star, Franco Colapinto.
Alpine’s results over the last few years have been mixed, to put it mildly, and Gasly doesn’t mince words when discussing the struggles with his car. “This year has been very difficult for us in terms of performance,” he admits, calling it “probably the toughest season of my career.”
Aside from the issues on the track, Gasly has also been thrust into the spotlight as the face of Alpine, and still learning to navigate public scrutiny on social media and in the press. The driver was just 21 when he arrived on the Formula One circuit, and he says one of the most exciting periods of his life was also one of the most trying.
“After my first season, I got promoted to Red Bull, and it’s very rare for someone to join the big team after only six months in Formula One,” he says. “I felt like I was put on a pedestal very quickly and no one ever taught me how to manage the public exposure and how to deal with those sorts of situations that are out of your control.”
I ask Gasly to elaborate and he pauses briefly to gather his thoughts. While the driver was heralded as a rising new talent when he joined Red Bull Racing for the start of the 2019 season, he was demoted back to Toro Rosso after the summer break, before the season was even finished. For an eager racer that was hailed as “one of the most exciting young drivers in motorsport” by then-Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner, the demotion was a blow to his self-confidence, and clouded his bright-eyed view of the sport. Gasly doesn’t want to seem ungrateful or offend anyone, but it’s clear his early years in F1 left him a little unnerved.
“At the start, it was all nice and bright and positive and funny, and then in the space of one year, there was a massive switch,” he finally says. “It was something I would have never imagined, in terms of the media coverage and the sort of toxicity I received during this time. It was a bit confusing to me, trying to understand how some people could judge you without knowing you as a person and just based on the job you’re doing.”
Then, he adds: “I was just 21 years old, so I was quite fresh and still trying to figure myself out.”
Gasly says the hardest part during that time was seeing how the comments and criticisms were affecting his family. “I think what was more difficult for me was to see the people I care about, that made huge sacrifices to get me to where I am today, being affected by this negativity that I was surrounded with,” he says. “At the end of the day, that’s just the life of an athlete and stuff I have to accept, but I was more bothered that it would affect my parents and my brothers, which wasn’t fair.”
These days, Gasly says he also feels more pressure than ever to defend his Alpine family, and shield them from the negative noise. “It’s quite tough, because I’ve got to keep the team up and I’ve got to keep the spirit up,” he says. “I need to make sure that the 100 guys that work at the track and also the 1,500 people that are back at the factory, are all motivated and know that we are in a position to fight for the front of the grid.”
From the outside looking in, the 2025 season may not have inspired much confidence in the Alpine car moving forward: the team finished last in the Constructors’ Championship with just 22 points, and while all of the points were earned by Gasly, it also marked the driver’s lowest points total since his debut year. But as he enters his tenth season on the F1 circuit, and having recently signed a contract to remain with the BWT Alpine Formula One Team through 2028, Gasly says he is finally learning how to balance the expectations of others with asserting himself and his own voice, something that he believes will help him both on and off the track.
“I think that’s kind of my approach in my sport, but also in my life right now, that when I know it’s going to be a sort of negative place, I just don’t put my head into it,” he says. “It’s something I figured out along the journey, accepting that you will have massive supporters and massive fans backing you up, and you’re going to have some people that are just neutral, and some others that are not on your side, even if you don’t really know the reason why,” he continues. “What I’ve learned is that I have zero interest in having any sort of negativity in my life. I’m working so hard, I’ve made all these sacrifices, and I know exactly what I want. And if there is any sort of negativity, I just shut the door. I don’t need that. At the end of the day, I have my people around me, and they are the ones I care about.”
Aside from his girlfriend Francisca (Kika) Gomes, who Gasly has been dating for three years, the thing the driver cares most about right now is Simba, the couple’s toy poodle that they brought home in 2024. After every race, Gasly says he always looks forward to coming home to Simba, who is loving and attentive, no matter the results from the track.
“I must say, that’s probably the best way to relax after a race, coming back and just chilling with my dog,” Gasly says, face visibly lighting up. “The love you get from a dog is just unreal. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re having a good or bad day, he is always so happy to have you back home, and that’s definitely a nice way to end a race day.”
Sports have also been a way for Gasly to unwind off the track. In 2024, Gasly bought an ownership stake in a French soccer team, becoming a joint shareholder of the semi-professional football club, FC Versailles. The team currently plays in the third division of the French football league system, but Gasly is hopeful that they’ll be promoted up the ranks in the years to come.
Like many of the other F1 drivers, Gasly has also been known to play a lot of padel. And he leads a run every year at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium to honor his close friend, Anthoine Hubert, who died in a Formula 2 crash there in 2019.
Currently though, Gasly has been obsessed with perfecting his golf game. “I find golf very relaxing, because you’re outdoors in nature and you’re just facing off against yourself,” he explains, expressing disappointment that a recent course booking in Vegas was canceled after an unexpected storm rolled in. “I also like that it’s very different from what I do,” he adds. “In F1, you’re dependent on the car, but when you’re on the [golf] course, it’s just you and your clubs, and I find that quite cool.”
The Alpine publicist interrupts to say we only have a few minutes left to chat. Speaking of sports, Gasly is set to attend the Vegas Golden Knights hockey game tonight, and he still has to shower and get ready, having come to this interview straight from a workout. He’ll later be seen donning a Golden Knights jersey and posing for photos with players backstage at T-Mobile Arena, recapping his night on Instagram.
I check my notes and am reminded to ask him about a TikTok video from the official F1 account that claimed he was a “Swiftie.” The driver demures and says that while he knows most of Swift’s “classic songs,” he is perhaps not as much of a fan as Gomes: “She’ll listen to a song once and she’ll know like half of the lyrics,” he jokes. Still, he says, music is an integral part of his pre-race routine.
Gasly chugs a coffee before he settles in for a power nap an hour and a half before each race. He figures it usually takes about 30 minutes for the caffeine to kick in, and when it does, he opens his eyes and is ready to “get in my zone.”
Gasly then starts his physical warm up, where he’ll put on a playlist of “energetic music,” with songs by 50 Cent, Central Cee and Travis Scott, to name a few of his favorite artists. Gasly grew up listening to rock music, taking after his father’s tastes, and the frequent jetsetter says he prefers classical music when flying. But when he’s preparing for a race, “I mainly listen to American rap or French rap,” he says.
The upbeat tracks start in his driver’s room in the paddock and continue playing through his earbuds even as his number 10 car is rolled onto the track to set up for the formation lap. “It just sort of blocks me from all the people we get on the grid,” he says. “And I can focus on just me and the race.”
There’s time for one last question and I ask Gasly about his goals for the upcoming year. The F1 season now spans 24 races across five continents and after last having a taste of the podium in 2024, Gasly is hungry to make a return appearance – hopefully on the top step. “I want to win next year,” he asserts. “That’s the only thing that I want. And I really believe in the team and the staff we have at the factory. I really believe that we have the ingredients to be successful in Formula One. And I really hope that from next year onward, we can start fighting for podiums and I can get my second race win.”
Just like how the timing worked out for him to see Taylor Swift in Milan and how the timing worked out for his qualifying run in Vegas and for his five F1 podiums to date, the Alpine driver knows his time is coming to deliver that big victory.
“We know that we are clearly not at the level that we all want to be at, but we also know something big is coming for the coming season,” he says. “We’re on a big low, but we’re hoping to bounce back to get as high as possible for 2026,” he continues, reminding me that the team won two World Championships as Renault Racing back in the day. Gasly says he’s never been more motivated — or ready — to deliver on his potential. “I really believe in ourselves as a team, and I want to be the one to put us back on top.”
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Category: General Sports
