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Formula One has no shortage of young talent, but few drivers embody passion and resilience quite like Pierre Gasly, now racing full-time for the BWT Alpine F1 Team. Hailing from Rouen, France, Gasly quickly rose through the ranks of European motorsport, but his breakthrough came in 2016 when he captured the GP2 Series title— a championship that often signals the next big name in F1.
Gasly made his F1 debut with Toro Rosso, now with the Visa Cash App Red Bull Team, in 2017 and earned a high-profile promotion to Red Bull Racing in 2019. However, after just a few months, he was abruptly demoted—a move that sparked headlines and raised doubts. But it turns out Gasly subscribes to the Eric Adams motto: make your haters your waiters at the table of success.
And in 2020, Gasly did just that, delivering one of the most memorable wins in recent Formula One history, taking the checkered flag at Monza in a dramatic upset. It was AlphaTauri’s first victory in over a decade — and the first by a French driver since 1996.
As an F1 driver, not to mention the Givenchy Gentleman Global Ambassador, one would think that Pierre could afford to be less than humble, but he is a solidly nice guy. In this exclusive interview with BroBible during the Montreal F1 Grand Prix, Pierre Gasly opens up about what it’s like living in front of a camera, investing in himself and sports, and the most comparable rush to racing.
Your job requires so much discipline and consistency—what part of your daily routine do you never skip, no matter what country or time zone you’re in?
I’ve got to have quite a strong routine. I’m pretty strict with my nutrition and getting three good meals a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Training, both physically and mentally, is very important — it makes me feel good and strong. It’s mainly boring stuff, but you need to get the basics right.
You have some serious business instincts off the track—what industries are you most interested in investing in right now?
I love investing. I’ve always been very curious, and with F1, I have a lot of chances and opportunities. At the moment, I’m investing a little bit more in sports. I have a padel team and a football team in France, but I do it more for the journey. It’s also quite emotional, with the connections and journey to learn from the process.
And then I also have other businesses that I own or am part of. I’m part of beauty brands, and I’m working on another project. I don’t want to say what it is now, but you’ll hear about it in a couple of months — it has taken me quite a lot of time, this last year and a half, and it’s something I’m very excited about. Investing is all about curiosity, and I’m quite hyperactive; I need to have my brain functioning away from Formula One. My whole life is about Formula One, I race F1 in the mornings and evenings, but I need to have that side hustle and interest to keep developing myself. You earn a lot of money as an athlete, but it can go quickly as well.
What’s been your biggest adrenaline rush aside from F1?
I think the only thing that came close to Formula One is jumping out of a plane. Free-falling is the only thing that brought me to a similar state. I really hated it because I wasn’t in control. I must say I don’t like heights so much, but it gave me the sort of feeling I get when I jump inside a F1 car, which was cool. Otherwise, it’s difficult to get a similar thrill to racing the fastest guy in the world.
For someone who has achieved success behind the wheel at such a young age, has that shaped or changed what “success” means to you?I think success, to me at this stage, is really about the basics in life. I am a big family person, and success is about family. I always say my success was a family journey for me to chase my dream, it would take sacrifices from all of us. There are a lot of ways to describe success, but it would be if my key people around me are in a good state.
Do you ever deal with impostor syndrome? How do you reconcile with everyone counting on you?
I really just try to be myself and not overthink all of that. You have responsibilities, but at the end of the day, people want me to do my thing. I’m a very good driver. I can drive cars faster than most people in the world, and that’s what I’m good at, paid for, and love, so at the end of the day I don’t overthink too much. Life has changed for me with Formula One, there was really a before and after with my first win in F1, but I just tried to stay true to myself and understand that in the world we live in, some people will like you, and some people will not like you, and it doesn’t matter what you do. Unfortunately, you can’t really control it. I just try to control the stuff that I can and do it well — do it extremely well, and that requires work.
Social media has clearly boosted your global profile. How do you keep that balance between being a world-class athlete and a recognizable public figure?
It goes back to what I said earlier — I am who I am. I learned it the hard way as well, coming into F1. I was put right out there in my first season and got promoted to Red Bull straight away. I had six months of nightmares and was absolutely getting destroyed in the press. I was twenty-one, people say you’re not affected, but you are affected. You are obviously affected mentally, and things feel unfair because no one knows exactly what’s going on. It’s really tough, but it made me so much stronger and my life so much better after going through this challenge and learning from it.
I learned at the end of the day, you don’t need to please people. Be yourself. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. As long as your core people see who you are and the values that you share, I don’t really care about my image on the internet. Whatever you see out there is the person I am, and you might like it, you may not like it, but I’m not playing games or wasting energy. Maybe I could try to act cooler, I could try to act smarter, but I’m not interested in that. I am who I am, and I’m fine with that. I had to learn it through my own journey, and it hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve learned a lot and I’ve gotten out in a much better place because of it.
Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.