The inside story of Gasly's shock maiden F1 win

In a normal year, the podium at Monza is one of the most special in Formula 1. But even this year, without the fans, the end of race ceremony took on extra special meaning for two men in particular.

The first of course was Pierre Gasly, whose photographs of being sat down trying to take in all the events behind his surprise maiden F1 win have already becoming a defining image of 2020.

But up there too, experiencing his first F1 podium to collect the trophy on behalf of AlphaTauri, was team manager and sporting director Graham Watson, who helped play a key part in the success.

The New Zealander, who began his F1 career in the mid-1990s as a mechanic at Benetton, moved to the team from Faenza six years ago.

At AlphaTauri, he combines the positions of team manager, responsible for several areas of work from logistics to mechanics at pit stops, and sporting director, making him a crucial figure on the pit wall.

Few are better placed to reveal the inside story of what happened at Monza on Sunday, even if when we speak on the telephone on the Tuesday after the race he confessed to being "destroyed" by the intensity of what happened.

"I didn't sleep Sunday night" he says. "I was just completely wired, almost replaying the whole day over and over again. I was trying to understand: 'did that really happen'?

"I mean, what a day! I mean, it all just unfolded in front of us. And every time we made a decision, it just turned out to be the right one."

Here are the key moments that helped Gasly and AlphaTauri to a famous victory.

The start

The Italian Grand Prix did not promise to be an easy one for AlphaTauri. After excellent results on Friday, when Gasly and Daniil Kvyat finished both practice sessions comfortably in the top ten, the team failed to repeat the same thing in qualifying.

Kvyat was knocked out in Q2, while Gasly did make it through to the final session but could manage no better than 10th.

From there, there looked to be little hope of anything extraordinary; indeed, Gasly's race could have ended on the first lap. The Frenchman found himself caught between Lance Stroll's Racing Point and Alex Albon's Red Bull, and could not avoid contact with the latter.

"I think we hoped that Pierre's tyre deg would be a little bit less than it was. But it was clear by about lap 16, that his tyre was starting to fall apart," Graham Watson

As Watson recalls, "Pierre, because he's quite sensitive to car, immediately was saying 'check the car, check the car, something's wrong'. And then when he got to Turn 4, he out-braked himself and went sort of straight on. He really thought something was wrong with the car, because he was quite loud on the radio.

"But everything in our data showed that [the car is alright]. We had good aero pressure on the floor and the front wing, no cross-weight or anything.

"He was on the radio over the first three laps, a few times just asking us again and again to check the car, and his engineer, Pierre Hamelin, kept saying 'Look, it's all good, mate. It's all good. Just get your head down. It's all gonna be okay'."

Fortunately for Gasly, not only was the car safe, but his excursion off-track in the second chicane only cost him one position to Esteban Ocon.

He returned to the track directly ahead of his team-mate and, ironically, this is what ultimately became one of the key factors in his victory.

How Kvyat "helped" Gasly win

AlphaTauri again, as in Spa, chose different strategies for its drivers. Kvyat, who did not qualify for Q3, was given the opportunity to choose his tyres for the start, and the team agreed to let him start the race on the hard compound.

A similar tactic had allowed Gasly to break into the top ten at the finish in Spa, even though the Frenchman was clearly unlucky with the moment the safety car entered the track.

"To be fair to Daniil, he felt like in Spa he didn't get the rub of the green with a strategy, and Pierre did," explains Watson.

"So in Monza he asked to be on the hard, and we went for it. But unfortunately for Dany it actually worked against him."

Gasly didn't have a chance to choose tyres. He had to start with softs, and initially the team planned that his first stint would last until lap 21.

But in the end, Pierre's tyres began to wear out faster than the team expected. After a dozen laps, he began not only to lag behind Esteban Ocon, who was in front, but also dropped back into the clutches of Kvyat.

"Daniil he was getting a little bit backed up," says Watson. "I wouldn't say massively, but Dany was a little bit annoyed with it, because he felt that we should let him get through and have an attack on the car in front.

"I think we hoped that Pierre's tyre deg would be a little bit less than it was. But it was clear by about lap 16, that his tyre was starting to fall apart.

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"At that moment we started talking about calling Pierre earlier, but we're like 'no, we've got to make the second stint for Pierre to work, we've got to keep him running'.

"The tyre has a certain life, and if you come in too early, then you're looking at a two stop [strategy], because you put yourself in a position where your tyres don't last until the end of the race.

"So, yeah, it was a little bit concerning. But on the other hand we thought, 'okay, if we get Gasly in and change the tyre, we can get them both into clear air.' Dany then can push and we can get him to his target lap, which I think was about lap 32/33."

"We knew if we came in and the safety car came out, we were going to be in big trouble," Graham Watson

The decision to call Gasly to the pits was made on lap 19 - two laps before the planned target. It was the perfect moment for the team.

The new hards would allow Gasly to get to the finish line without an additional pit stop, while the team cleared the track for Kvyat, who was on an alternative strategy.

Just before Pierre's pit stop, Kevin Magnussen slowed down at the exit of the last corner.

The moment, when "it all fell apart"

The breakdown of the Haas eventually gave Gasly a chance to win the race. But right at that moment, with Kevin Magnussen's car parked at the side of the road, it actually posed a major threat to AlphaTauri.

"We knew if we came in and the safety car came out, we were going to be in big trouble" admits Watson. "Because if we drop Pierre to the back, it's gonna be a long day from there for him.

"They asked me 'do you think it'd be a safety car?' And I was like '...ufff'. I thought the VSC [maximum]. Probably. Because it looked to me like that the [Haas] car was not really in a dangerous place, it was on the inside of the corner and everything.

"We dwelled on it and dwelled on it, and in the end our strategy engineer said: 'We've got to do it. We're losing too much time with Kvyat. So we've got to get Gasly in. And we're losing too much time with Gasly too [due to tyre degradation]. So it has to be done.'"

As soon as Gasly made his pit stop, a message appeared on the FIA technical monitors that the safety car was being called out - and this was the worst thing that could have happened to AlphaTauri at that moment.

Not only did Gasly's rivals appear to then get the opportunity to hold a free pit stop, but Kvyat's strategy was completely destroyed.

The Russian had to stay on the track on the hard set, because neither the medium nor soft could allow him to reach the end of the distance without an additional pit stop. But Gasly still seemed to be the main loser.

"Poor guy!" laughs Watson. "He drove down to the pit lane and - bang - safety car. I don't know if you heard the radio comms from Pierre, but his words were: 'I can't fucking believe this is happening'. At that moment, all of us on the pit wall, our hearts just sank.

"We were like 'oh, no.' It's happened to Pierre before, it's happened to us as a team before and it always feels like...I don't know. I'm sure it's the same for all teams, but sometimes you feel like it's always your team that gets the rub of the green in the wrong direction."

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Good news from "blonde American"

Everything changed in a split second though. As soon as the marshals knew they had to push Magnussen's Haas towards the pit lane, the race management closed the pits.

While Mercedes was taken by surprise at this, Watson found out about the decision of Michael Masi and his colleagues instantly - thanks to a system that he himself invented several years ago.

"I guess Mercedes don't have anything similar, because otherwise they would have known" he says proudly. "But on our pit wall about three years ago I instigated a computerised voice-over on all messages from the FIA.

"We were praying that the pit lane would stay completely closed until Pierre caught the back of the group, because at that moment he'd had to catch all that 20 seconds back up," Graham Watson

"So when the FIA - that message comes up on page three - says 'pit lane is closed', I get a computer generated voice telling me. It is a woman, I call her the 'blonde American', because of the accent. She was saying 'pit lane is closed'.

"Engineers were saying we could bring Dany in under the safety car, and I started screaming 'no, don't come in, don't come in, don't come in'. And they all looked at me, and I said 'the pit entry is closed, the pit entry is closed'.

"So we stayed there. But then I saw Hamilton coming in. I was like 'have I fucked up, as sporting director, have I made a massive mistake here?' Because a team like Mercedes don't make these sorts of errors. And then I looked at the screen again. 'No, no, 100% guys, don't come in. You've got to stay out'."

It was at this very moment that Gasly turned from the main loser to the main beneficiary.

"Suddenly Pierre wasn't 20 seconds behind," explains Watson. "He was 20 seconds up on everybody."

From that moment on, everything went according to the ideal scenario for AlphaTauri. The FIA did not only close the entrance to the pit lane, but did not open it until the perfect moment for the team.

"We were praying that the pit lane would stay completely closed until Pierre caught the back of the group," explains Watson, "because at that moment he'd had to catch all that 20 seconds back up. You can't do that until the safety car would cross the control line the second time, as you have to follow the delta time.

"So, he was stuck in this safety car mode, where you have to drive around at a snail pace. Pierre was yelling 'please, tell them to keep the pit entry closed'. So he was aware of what was going on.

"We were trying to calm him down, because, you know, the first moment his heart sunk, and then the second moment we say 'mate, you are now effectively P3'.

"And luckily for us, I think we caught the pack around the Lesmo after the second lap. And then, if I remember right, they opened the pit lane."

The red flag period

Thus - after the pit stops of most of the drivers - Gasly immediately found himself in third place, behind Lewis Hamilton, who was waiting for a penalty, and Lance Stroll, who never changed from his soft starting set.

Alfa Romeo and Charles Leclerc, who made his pit stop on lap 17, were suddenly behind, as well as two McLaren drivers.

"I still never expected to win at that moment" says Watson. "I felt like 'okay, we are running in third, there are a couple of quicker cars behind us - like [Carlos] Sainz, and [Lando] Norris - but we can hang on to top-10 easily, and that's a good day for us.

"I had to give them the old Kiwi, 'Everybody just shut the fuck up and calm down!' Which is exactly what I said," Graham Watson

"I think we've got the legs on Ferrari at the moment. But Charles is always a threat. He is a never give up driver, isn't he? And then Carlos and Norris were obviously quick, as was the Racing Point. There was a good bunch of cars behind us that clearly would have given us a hard time."

But then everything changed one more time.

"I think Pierre came on radio and said 'Charles off'," recalls Watson. "I looked up and I saw on the GPS that he'd stopped, and the engineers started screaming like they always do, because they go into panic mode. 'Will it be a red flag? Will it be a red flag?' And I said 'Mate, I am not in race control'.

"They've got Charles' onboard on the main feed, and he was moving. So I said 'I don't think he's hurt or anything'. And then he jumped out. I said 'okay, there'll be a red flag only if the tyre barrier needs repairing', but I couldn't see it.

"And when they showed it from the helicopter camera, you could see the barrier was quite damaged and needed a bit of realignment. So, at that point, we thought 'okay, this could be a red flag'."

And red flag it was.

"Everybody just shut the fuck up"

It was at this moment that Gasly finally became one of the main contenders for victory. Pierre was found to have retained the third position. There was no more threat from Charles Leclerc, and two Alfa Romeos separated Gasly from a pair of McLarens and Valtteri Bottas. Ahead was only Hamilton, who in the first laps after the restart had to serve a stop and go penalty, plus Lance Stroll.

"In these moments, on the radio, it just goes mental. It's like a telephone exchange, but everybody in the whole country is phoning in at the same time. Everybody wants to know 'how long we got?', 'are we allowed a change of tyres?', 'can we do this?', 'can we do that?'

"I had to give them the old Kiwi, 'Everybody just shut the fuck up and calm down!' Which is exactly what I said.

"I said 'Look, I can't hear myself think, just be quiet. We're going to have more than 10 minutes here', because you get a ten-minute warning for the restart. 'Let's just take some time to breathe and think about what we're going to do next'."

There was something to think about. Several years ago the FIA changed the restart rules and it was in Monza that we first saw the second standing start in the same race.

"We didn't know if it was going to be a rolling start or a standing start," says Watson. "So I called Michael Masi. And I said 'Michael, look, what do you think, standing or rolling?" And I was pretty confident it would be a standing, because there was no reason not to. It wasn't wet and there were no other factors at play.

"And he said to me 'Look, Graham, highly likely'. He didn't say 'yes', he just said 'highly likely standing start'. So, that had a massive impact on which tyre we wanted to fit.

"We were on a used hard tyre at that point, which should have been great for a rolling start, and we'd easily gotten into the race. But for the standing start, we really wanted the fresh new tyre, and we had a brand new set of a medium sitting in blankets.

"So Jonathan Eddolls, the chief race engineer, decamped from the pit wall and went down to speak to Gasly, who was at that moment quite keen to stay on the hard. He was quite concerned about the medium.

"He is really, really strong. I mean, he is a super nice guy. There's no arrogance in him. He doesn't really have an ego. He just wants to be a Formula 1 driver and do well," Graham Watson

"So, Jonathan spent a bit of time with him and his engineer. Then he came back and said 'okay, you think it will be a standing start?' I said 'Jonathan, unfortunately, that's not something I can predict, but my feeling is - from the conversation with Michael - is that it is going to be standing'.

"Then they flashed up on the screen 'No radio comms on rolling lap to grid', and I said to Jonathan 'definitely standing start'. And they'd already talked Pierre into the medium at that point. So yeah, there was that phase of the race done.

"We had, I think: 27 racing laps to go. We've got a really good tyre guy, Stefano Orban. And he's got a good group of people behind him in the factory, and they were pretty confident that the tyre would be okay for 27 laps. It'd need bit of managing, for sure, but...

"Don't forget, at this moment we weren't thinking about winning the race. We were thinking we're going to get good points out of it. I don't think anybody said anything like a 'we should win this race'. We just decided to go for the medium because the tyre group felt it would do it and also we would get a good start."

Gasly's mental fortitude

From that moment on, it was Gasly's job to execute. In fact, only Stroll separated him from the lead in this race.

But the Canadian also had a set of fresh mediums, and to the right of Gasly in the second row was Kimi Raikkonen, who had just been changed to soft. Gasly needed a perfect start to qualify for victory.

"In New Zealand we often talk about mental fortitude, when we talk about the New Zealand All Black rugby team" says Watson. "And, you know, the strength of Pierre... the mental aspect in the moment, his psychological wearables played a huge role.

"He is really, really strong. I mean, he is a super nice guy. There's no arrogance in him. He doesn't really have an ego. He just wants to be a Formula 1 driver and do well. And I think, since the day he stepped down from the Red Bull car and went back into our car in Spa last year, he's just been on form, you know.

"It was perceived by the public as a demotion. I don't see it that way, being part of AlphaTauri. But anyhow... He scored points, bang, first race up, and he got his head down. And since then, I feel he's just gone from strength to strength every day.

"He's been in really focused place since he came back to us. And I don't think it's about proving the point to Helmut [Marko] or Christian [Horner] or anything like that.

"I think it's more that he wants to be a Formula 1 driver. He's prepared to put the effort to do it. And I think when it came to that start, he had the new tyre, and he knew 'if I get into P2 here, I've got a chance to win this race'.

"He didn't say it, but he knew it.

"He was just super focused on the start. And, you know, as we all saw, he just toughed it out. At the start. Toughed it out with Kimi into Turn 4. And Lance... I'm not sure what happened, but he had a poor start and then he went straight on in Turn 4.

"So ultimately, one guy, one rookie in terms of fighting for a victory, was focused, and I think Lance maybe let a little bit of gremlin to get him, and unfortunately that's where his race became a race for P3."

"Is this our car?"

Beating Stroll at the start meant that when Hamilton entered the pit lane - Gasly got the opportunity to attack on a clean track.

At that moment, not only did he surprise AlphaTauri with his pace, but the team had a bit of a strange problem. It was almost inverse to what Mercedes was facing with its car needing cooling because it was running in traffic. The AT01 was 'freezing'.

"You know, we've always in dirty year, all our time in the sport pretty much" says Watson. "And having Pierre out front, I mean... the car was running so cold!

"Every parameter of the cooling system, the brakes, everything else was just freezing cold! We were like... 'Is this our car? Or is this someone else's car we're looking at on the data?' Because it just makes such a difference running in free air.

"Someone told me the other day 'Oh, you know, you guys were lucky' and it was sort of 'gifted'. I said 'Well, hang on a minute. The guy had to lead from the front for 27 laps'. That's not being gifted," Graham Watson

"There was a significant difference for that. And that probably helped Pierre as well, because you get a little bit more engine performance if you've got your cooling under control. You're not doing lift and coast to try and save brakes and things like that. So it all plays into your hands.

"I think having Hamilton dive in the pits didn't really have a massive effect on us, but it just allowed Pierre to just get his head down and get on it. And with the cushion between Carlos of Kimi, he had a few laps to start extending a bit of a gap."

As Watson points out, there wasn't much the team could do for Gasly from that moment on.

"Pierre, his engineer, could give him information on changing brake modes and stuff to, you know, make sure we weren't getting any unnecessary slip," he says. "But ultimately, now with this PU situation, there's not a lot to tell the driver.

"It was all down to him at the end. And, you know, the last 27 laps of that race he drove like a champion. He didn't make a mistake. He got his head down.

"He managed the gap to Carlos right up to the last lap, when his tyres were absolutely dead.

"Someone told me the other day 'Oh, you know, you guys were lucky' and it was sort of 'gifted'. I said 'Well, hang on a minute. The guy had to lead from the front for 27 laps'. That's not being gifted. For sure it helps, you know, having the Mercedes getting penalties and everything else, but he still drove a really strong race.

"And even then... I'll be honest with you, from where I sat on the pit wall, I still couldn't see the win coming. You know, I could see Carlos' lap times, and I just thought okay, you know, we'll get P2 out of this, and it will be a bloody good result. You know, not 'disappointing'. It was gonna be bloody good.

"But when Pierre, the engineer, was talking to Gasly in the car, he was super under control. He said 'Look, you know, I'm under control on managing. What's the gap? Just keep telling me the gap'.

"It was difficult... the last eight laps, where everybody just, you know, we wanted to believe we could do it. We could see that Carlos still had a bit more tyre life and they had a faster car than us all weekend! I mean, these last eight laps felt like forever. Normally in Monza the race disappears in front of your eyes in seconds, but this just felt like days."

The podium

And then it was over. Gasly crossed the finish line 0.415 seconds ahead of Sainz, and as Watson described "mentalness broke out" on the pit wall.

"Our intercom went crazy," he says. "I mean completely crazy. I think all of us opened our mics together. Everyone had something to say. Not to Pierre, but to each other. Franz was happiest I've seen him all time I've been working with him.

"I can't deny I didn't have a little tear. Not so much because we won the race, just the emotional toll on the pit wall. Just in a normal race is quite hard. I genuinely come off every Sunday night with a headache. And to have the pressure of what we were facing to try and win this race - and then everything that Gasly has been through...

"It will be a day I'll live with forever, for sure. If we won another race, yeah, okay, that's fine. But this particular one, in Monza, is something very special. Very, very special."

"I wrote a text to Franz, just saying 'Thank you for giving the opportunity to represent the team on the podium' and, that it was 'one of the proudest moments of my life'," Graham Watson

It became even more special for Watson as he was chosen to go up to he podium to collect the team's trophy.

"After the race was over, Franz came up to me" recalls Graham. "I still had my headset on, and the intercom was still quite active, so I couldn't really hear what he was saying.

"But he sort of pointed at me and thrust his finger in the chest and said something about 'you'. And I sort of missed part of the conversation and sort of told 'OK, Franz, yeah yeah'. And he walked off.

"But then he came back... and I'm still on the pit wall. And he said 'Forget all this shit, Graham, forget all this shit. Come with me. We've got to go. Pierre will be in in a moment.'

"So we ran down the pit lane, and then Jonathan Wheatley jumped off the Red Bull pit wall stand and broke the bubble and gave me a massive hug. Like a genuine hug. It wasn't like one of those 'yeah, well done, mate' hugs. It was a proper, you know, emotional 'fucking fantastic job' hug.

"And then I got down to the driver pen, where Pierre was just going out of the car. And Franz said 'how do you get up to the podium?' And I said 'I don't know, Franz. I have never been up there, mate.'

"I said 'I'll tell you what, I'll go off and find someone from the FIA to assist you'. And he said 'No, no, you're going on the podium.' And I looked, and I said 'oh, no, no, no, no'. And he said 'no, you're going. That's what I said to you down there on the pit wall. You're going on the podium.'

"And I tell you what, it's such a shame there was no fans, I mean, the tifosi. We're an Italian team in the end. And it would have been a pretty amazing feeling having the Italian anthem with the whole tifosi, but at the end of the day, it was still a very emotional moment. Very emotional.

"I wrote a text to Franz, just saying 'Thank you for giving the opportunity to represent the team on the podium' and, that it was 'one of the proudest moments of my life'. Because it's just all that work, all that toll and hours and...

"You know, F1 is a massive emotional roller coaster. Peaks and troughs of extreme. You're at the low of the low and you're at the highest of the highs, and all those years of that, and then to finally, just get something that was so out of this world.

"I think Toto said 'Formula 1 was the winner from Sunday'. People wanted to see something different. And you know, we delivered it. And to be part of it, it was a pretty amazing day."

"I really hope he just stays with us"

That "amazing day", Watson insists, wouldn't be possible without a driver, who delivered when it mattered.

"He's just such a great guy to be around", says Graham of Gasly. "Like I said, he's full of confidence, but he's not arrogant. He's not really got a massive ego or anything. He's a classic 24 year old. But he drives a Formula 1 car and enjoys it.

"You sometimes see drivers, who go to certain teams and don't perform to the level you know they can perform at. It's just that environment doesn't fit. It is as simple as that. And for whatever reason AlphaTauri fits him. This team fits his personality.

"I think since he came back from Red Bull, I don't believe he had anything to prove. I think before he went to Red Bull he's already shown he's a very strong driver. But I think since he's come back, he's just ramped up the focus in the driving side.

"What can you say about the guy at the moment? He's seen as the driver of the year, outside of Lewis. The performances coming weekend after weekend... You know, they're not always seen," Graham Watson

"He still has his personal life and he still says 'ah, Graham, I want to fly back to Normandy because I want to spend a weekend with my family'. He's not lost his place, where he came from, he's very attached to his family. But he's just driving so well... And I think he's comfortable, which makes a huge impact on him.

"Things at Red Bull Racing were so different to Toro Rosso. Expectation was so high - which is understandable, because these guys want to win world championships. It just didn't work for him. And he's come back to us. He deserves to be in Formula 1, 100%. You don't win in a grand prix by chance.

"He put it all together that day and for sure showed the world that Pierre Gasly has a career in Formula 1, because he is good enough to be here. And, you know, I really hope he just stays with us. I really do. I'd love him just to stay in our team for another couple of years.

"When he first came to us. He was talking about, you know, 'I want to be a Red Bull driver, I want to be Red Bull driver'. And I said to him 'You know, mate, one of the negatives I have as a team manager in our team is that everybody we get obviously is [from] a Red Bull [junior program]. And they all turn up with the same attitude, which is 'this team's not really good enough for me, I want to be in the Red Bull team'".

"And I said to him 'look, when you come to our team, just make this team your team. Do what [Michael] Schumacher did at Benetton'. Benetton was a team that was relatively successful, but not massively successful when Michael Schumacher joined it. But he made that team his team. And he made the people in that team believe that they could do better than they were doing, that they could win. And when they did win a race, they believed they could win world championships.

"I said 'That's what you do with us, just make this team your team'. And I think in a way, he sort of did it now.

"You know, there's a huge amount of belief in him. I sent him a message the other day, saying 'mate, I can't tell you how proud this group of people is of you'. And this was before we went to Monza.

"What can you say about the guy at the moment? He's seen as the driver of the year, outside of Lewis. The performances coming weekend after weekend, they're not always seen. But, you know, the Spa drive was phenomenal. That was unbelievable. He's got the rub of the green the wrong way with the safety car. We dropped him down to last, he came out and just drove that car to come in 8th.

"And then to back that up in Monza with the win. Wow. The boy is differently in form. It can't be questioned. It just can't be questioned.

"I don't know what Christian and Helmut are thinking now, but I just hope they, you know, continue with Alex and leave Pierre to continue to grow with us. And then let's see what happens."