If there’s one thing that stands out about the 2023 Formula 1 season, it’s the Red Bull drivers’ consistency—Max Verstappen dominating and winning every race possible, and Sergio Perez managing to mess his weekends up with rookie mistakes. While Verstappen is bringing in trophies for the team weekend after weekend, Perez is incurring costs of damages on Red Bull just as often. Considering how often the Mexican has found himself in the wall this season, you would think he’s the driver who’s financially cost his team the most. He’s close, but he’s not up there. So who is?

If Perez were a team, he would be Alpine. Like Perez, Alpine can’t seem to catch a break from its bad run of form, and, weekend after weekend, the only thing piling up instead of points is damage costs. So it would make sense for one of their two drivers to top the list of damage costs. And it’s Pierre Gasly. When the Frenchman joined Alpine this season, this wouldn’t have been the start he would’ve envisioned. While he has had a couple of good points finishes, his crashes and DNFs far outnumber them. And owing to his collision with his teammate Esteban Ocon in Hungary, he’s established himself at the top of the “damage costs for 2023” list.

As per a tweet by Motorsport Turkey, Gasly has incurred $1,686,000 worth of damage costs on Alpine, narrowly edging out Perez, who’s at $1,597,000. His Lap 1 crash at Budapest only made Aline’s situation worse. To be fair, though, Gasly wasn’t at fault there. He was just collateral damage. After a decent start off the line from P15, he was alongside Ocon going into Turn 1. But Ocon got back-ended by Daniel Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri and crashed into his teammate, taking both Alpines out.

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This was Alpine’s third double-DNF in 2023, with the others coming in Silverstone and Melbourne. While Melbourne featured another horrific crash between Gasly and Ocon (significantly contributing to Gasly’s damage costs), Gasly’s DNF in Silverstone came after a collision with Lance Stroll. Apart from his three DNFs, a crash during qualifying in Azerbaijan didn’t help his case either. The team is putting in all the effort to get back into fighting form. However, Gasly knows his crashes and mistakes aren’t helping. Although Alpine isn’t getting rewarded for its efforts right now, Gasly is hopeful it’ll happen soon.

Pierre Gasly knows Alpine’s efforts will reap rewards

When Alpine started the season, it hoped to finish P4 in the Constructors’ Championship like last season. Although it looked possible after a few races into the season, its development has suddenly plateaued. And while other teams like McLaren have taken forward leaps, Pierre Gasly & Co.’s crashes and results are only holding them back even after putting in all the effort possible. 

Coming off the back of a double-DNF in Silverstone before the Hungarian GP weekend, Gasly mentioned how he feels the team isn’t being rewarded for the efforts it’s putting in. But he believes that it’ll soon happen. He said, “Hopefully the picture looks different again in a few races. It’s just this and that coming together, and unfortunately we don’t get any reward for our work. That’s frustrating, of course. There is no secret. We need to improve our package, and we will all work on that. We have some good things for the coming weeks. Hopefully that will make a difference.”

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Can Pierre Gasly make amends for his costly errors on the remaining race weekends and help Alpine climb back up?