Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen has asserted he is not focusing on timelines to bring the team into a successful position in F1.<\/p>\n
Alpine endured a challenging campaign in 2025 and ended the year at the bottom of the standings with just one point-scoring finish in the final 11 grand prix weekends.<\/p>\n
It marked the first time that the Enstone-based squad has finished a season rooted to the last spot in the championship in its history.<\/p>\n
The team has gone through various management changes in recent years, with Nielsen one of various figures to hold a senior position with the squad.<\/p>\n
In the past, Alpine declared a 100-race plan to return to the helm of the F1 pecking order – instead, it has trended in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n
Nielsen has declared he will not seek to impose a timeline on Alpine’s latest quest to turn around its form.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a person who believes in a ‘100 race plan’ or a ‘three-year plan’ or a ‘five-year plan’,\u201d Nielsen told select media including RacingNews365.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe you put the best people you can get in the right positions. You give a clear mission, get the army marching all in the same direction, and you just work as hard as you can and do the best job you can.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mill away at it. It’s a slow grinding process, and you hope eventually you do a better job than everybody else.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you we’re building a better car next year than we have this year. I can’t tell you whether that will line-up on the grid in first or 10th for 20th – I don’t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alpine opted early in the season to switch focus to the 2026 car, which is being built under a brand-new set of technical regulations.<\/p>\n
It resulted in a season off the pace, but it was a decision that was fully supported by the drivers.<\/p>\n
As it hopes to commence the 2026 campaign in a better run of form, Nielsen asserted that the vast changes to the cars creates an air of uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m confident we’ve made a step, but the other nine are also doing the same as we’re doing, you don’t know how much progress they’ve made,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I know is we’re doing the best we can, and we’re improving our structure. We’re recruiting in the areas where we’re weak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat grinding process starts now. You can’t turn these things around in a few months or even a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was here when, when Renault bought Bennetton the first time around, it took us three years to win a race and five years to win a championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that metric doesn’t necessarily hold true today. It might be shorter, it might be longer. You just do the best you can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen has asserted he is not focusing on timelines to bring the team into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,2476,578,2479,2477,2480,2478,930,576,577,932,1885,2475,582,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-358860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-f1-calendar","13":"tag-f1-live","14":"tag-f1-results","15":"tag-f1-standings","16":"tag-ferrari","17":"tag-formula-1","18":"tag-formula1","19":"tag-lewis-hamilton","20":"tag-max-verstappen","21":"tag-motorsport","22":"tag-racing","23":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358860","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=358860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}