{"id":280718,"date":"2025-11-13T16:24:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/280718\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T16:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:24:15","slug":"alpine-shocked-by-f1-rivals-developing-cars-so-late-into-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/280718\/","title":{"rendered":"Alpine shocked by F1 rivals developing cars so late into 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alpine<\/a> managing director Steve Nielsen said the team was caught by surprise by how its midfield rivals continued to improve their cars during the 2025 Formula 1 campaign.<\/p>\n

The Enstone-based squad started the season in decent form, carrying momentum from a strong finish to 2024. Pierre Gasly<\/a> reached Q3 three times in the first six grands prix, including a stellar Bahrain Grand Prix with a top-five starting position and a seventh-place finish at the chequered flag.<\/p>\n

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However, Alpine began to lose ground after stopping development of the A525 around the Spanish Grand Prix in early June to focus on F1\u2019s new 2026 regulations – despite others adding new parts to their cars. Haas proved to be the most extreme example of this, introducing floor and bodywork upgrades for the United States Grand Prix last month.<\/p>\n

This meant the last few rounds were particularly painful for Alpine, as both Gasly and Franco Colapinto<\/a> often found themselves fighting only each other at the back of the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo sum it up, our biggest problem is our car\u2019s not fast enough,\u201d Nielsen told Motorsport.com. \u201cOf course there are a million reasons contributing to that, both at Enstone and at the track, but a lot of our issues are that the car we put on the track is not good enough and we need to make a better one.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe need to do that in time for next year, and I\u2019m confident we will. But it\u2019s also no secret that we were one of the first teams to switch over to next year, to the big raft of technical changes that are coming. The earlier you start that, the more developed your car will be when you start racing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steve Nielsen, Managing Director at Alpine F1\"Steve<\/p>\n

Steve Nielsen, Managing Director at Alpine F1<\/p>\n

Nielsen, who joined Alpine in September as the team\u2019s new manager<\/a>, defended the decision to switch early towards next year\u2019s challenger, but admitted they didn\u2019t expect some of their direct rivals in the paddock to keep developing their cars so late into the season.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think that\u2019s the right thing to do,\u201d he added. \u201cThe one thing that\u2019s caught us out a little bit is that we were surprised how many of our competitors have kept developing throughout the year. Haas, for example, put a big aero upgrade on in Austin, I think it was. We didn\u2019t expect that, but nonetheless, we\u2019re clear on our mission and happy with it.<\/p>\n

When asked why Alpine chose not to continue developing this year\u2019s car while also focusing on the 2026 challenger \u2013 something others proved was possible \u2013 Nielsen explained the challenges of doing both.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe short answer is I wish we were more competitive now,\u201d he said. \u201dI just hope that the pain we\u2019re going through now is vindicated next year when we produce a much more competitive car.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut to be clear, the parallel development of two cars…most teams only have access to one wind tunnel. And it\u2019s governed by regulation anyway. For us to keep our 2025 car in the wind tunnel means we cannot put our 2026 car in.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you can do both, but it becomes a very inefficient way of working because to take one model out and put another one in, it\u2019s downtime for the tunnel. You lose hours and days doing that, recalibration and so on.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we felt the best option for us to make the biggest step was not to develop this year\u2019s car. I should also say that, of course, when the team was testing in Bahrain pre-season this year, the car looked quite competitive. So we were kind of surprised by the amount of work the others have done. Hopefully, in March, when we\u2019re further up the group, we\u2019ll get to say, \u2018Well, this is why.\u2019 You know, if we\u2019re ahead of them. But right now, nobody knows.\u201d<\/p>\n

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No extra pressure in 2026F1 concept\"F1<\/p>\n

F1 concept<\/p>\n

Nielsen isn\u2019t worried that having discarded the 2025 season so early – a decision that has left the team currently last in the constructors\u2019 championship with just 22 points, around a third of those scored by nearest rival Sauber<\/a> \u2013 will add pressure on Alpine to perform next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always pressure in F1,\u201d said Nielsen. \u201cWhether you\u2019re racing for first or for 10th, there\u2019s always pressure. You either learn to live with it or you don\u2019t. There\u2019s always something you\u2019re not happy about, whether it\u2019s a slow pitstop, a poor strategy call, poor tyre usage, or something else. You never, or very rarely, go to bed at night thinking everything is perfect.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo the pressure\u2019s always there. And actually, the faster a car gets, the more the pressure builds. In the end – and I\u2019ve heard people in other sports talk about this the same way – when you have a car that you know can win, and you deliver that, it\u2019s more a feeling of relief than happiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause when you know you\u2019ve got the potential to win, to do well, to come third or 10th or whatever it is, if you deliver that potential, great. If you don\u2019t, you can\u2019t be happy. I\u2019ve done races in the past where we finished first and third and I was totally unhappy, because it should have been first and second.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd because we\u2019re all quite self-critical people, it\u2019s very easy to always focus on the negatives, on the things you\u2019re not happy with. So I think the pressure\u2019s always there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Read Also:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mattia Binotto: Drivers are starting to enjoy F1’s biggest 2026 rule changes <\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Audi targets 2030 F1 title bid as it unveils R26 concept car for 2026 <\/a><\/p>\n

To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen said the team was caught by surprise by how its midfield rivals continued…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[127876,86840,49,48,578,576,577,3022,82,5173],"class_list":["post-280718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-alpine-f1","tag-bahrain-grand-prix","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-pierre-gasly","tag-sports","tag-steve-nielsen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}