{"id":846114,"date":"2026-08-06T23:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T23:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/846114\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T23:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T23:10:12","slug":"alpine-f1-midseason-report-moving-forward-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/846114\/","title":{"rendered":"Alpine F1 Midseason Report: Moving Forward Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Championship position: 6th (61 points)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about perspective. Fundamentally, sixth place remains underwhelming for a team with rich heritage, which entered the 2020s targeting reeling in the front-runners, and which does\u2014despite the inability or hesitancy to promote the fact\u2014have majority ownership from a major automotive brand.<\/p>\n

But sixth place is a significant upswing for a team that slumped to a distant last in the 2025 standings and which has had a tumultuous few years of chopping and changing personnel. Flavio Briatore\u2019s decision to mothball Renault\u2019s engine project and hook up with Mercedes was unpopular, and led to Alpine relinquishing works status, but it has facilitated the team\u2019s step forward into the midfield.<\/p>\n

The A526 has been a fundamentally mid-pack car, with nothing especially standout, and nothing especially wrong, though it has struggled more relative to the opposition on high-speed circuits. Reliability has been a strength of Alpine\u2019s\u2014not a sentence written often in previous year\u2014with the only retirement so far suffered by Pierre Gasly in Miami, where he was sent into a dramatic but harmless roll by a helpless Liam Lawson.<\/p>\n

However, the recent grands prix have been less rewarding. Racing Bulls\u2019 surge, and Audi\u2019s progression, has taken some of the shine from Alpine\u2019s campaign, suggesting that in-season development remains a relative weakness. Of Alpine\u2019s 61 points, just four have been accrued across the past four events.<\/p>\n

\"FormulaNurPhoto\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Alpine boss Flavio Briatore.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe simply have to admit that they have done a better job in this phase of the year,\u201d Alpine boss Flavio Briatore said of Racing Bulls. \u201cWe know that developments and upgrades are coming very soon, and we need to make big jumps that we know we’re capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alpine\u2019s return to the midfield has enabled Gasly to return to his pugnacious best. Realistically Alpine can\u2019t do better than Gasly, and Gasly can\u2019t do better than Alpine, so it\u2019s in the interests of both to knuckle down and move forwards \u2013 as shown by last year\u2019s renewal through 2028. Seventh place in Japan was an excellent drive while Monaco podium was fortunate but demonstrated Gasly\u2019s ability to seize an opportunity.<\/p>\n

Franco Colapinto is finally benefiting from stability, after his partial season with Williams in 2024 and late entry at Alpine in 2025, and is now looking like he belongs in Formula 1. After a slow start, Colapinto enjoyed a breakthrough weekend in Miami, leading the midfield en route to seventh, and is doing a solid job of staking his claim for a renewal into 2027.<\/p>\n

Away from on-track matters, an impending title partnership with Gucci from 2027 will no doubt enhance the team\u2019s brand outside of Formula 1, as well as leading to a revised look and a sizable financial injection.<\/p>\n

Alpine has so far ticked the box of returning to respectability in 2026, and now the target has to be to close in on the top four teams, rather than become entrenched in the mid-pack for another regulation cycle. <\/p>\n

\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n

U.K.-based Phillip Horton started covering Grands Prix while still at university and swiftly deemed that writing about Formula 1 and the behind-the-scenes machinations was much more engaging than reading centuries-old novels. Degree gained, he went on to cover the sport full-time from 2014 and is as intrigued and excited by the destinations Formula 1 visits during its lengthy annual world tour as the racing itself. Phillip joined Autoweek in 2021 and while he has just about learned to spell in American English he has yet to find anywhere in America that makes a proper cup of tea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Championship position: 6th (61 points) It\u2019s all about perspective. Fundamentally, sixth place remains underwhelming for a team with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,428,417304,430,817,813,816,308081,2387,417303,366213,85,233947],"class_list":["post-846114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-fed35f63-d763-4f23-902c-eaa2b5f6aa2c","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-shorttitle-alpine-f1-midseason-report-moving-forward-again","tag-sponsored-false","tag-sports","tag-subsection-formula-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}