{"id":448651,"date":"2026-02-02T06:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T06:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/448651\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T06:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T06:18:11","slug":"nowhere-to-hide-for-2025s-slowest-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/448651\/","title":{"rendered":"Nowhere to Hide for 2025\u2019s Slowest Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s nowhere to hide for Alpine heading into the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

A team that started out Formula 1\u2019s last regulatory cycle as the best-placed to challenge the existing front-runners, and which it is easy to forget placed fourth in the championship, last year slumped to a distant last. <\/p>\n

Alpine\u2019s A525 was not a no-hoper, as the competitive nature of the field accentuated any deficits, but it was \u201cTeam Enstone\u2019s\u201d worst result since its nascent Toleman days of the 1980s. <\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

Alpine\u2019s dismal 2025 stemmed from a poor start to 2024, when it produced a lackluster and overweight car, and while improvements were gradually made the deficit left the team facing a mountain to climb.<\/p>\n

Alpine was consequently one of the first teams to switch off the development tap in 2025, fully shifting its focus onto 2026, and the ambition is to turn the short-term pain into profit this year. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe we are competitive,\u201d said Alpine\u2019s Executive Advisor Flavio Briatore. \u201cWe have been working very well. Our technical people have done a super job. Alpine is really coming back with performance this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"2026<\/p>\n

Sjoerd van der Wal\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Briatore, who enjoyed success with the team under its Benetton and Renault guises in the mid-1990s and mid-2000s, has been steadfast in his belief that Alpine should be returning to podium contention this year, and looking significantly higher in 2027. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect the best, this year is not an excuse any more, we have a brand new car, we have the same drivers,\u201d Briatore said. \u201cIf the car is bad it\u2019s our fault, we don\u2019t have any problem to building this car, we have the budget, the technical [partner], the sponsors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

Of course, one of the biggest decisions undertaken at Alpine was the decision to mothball Renault\u2019s nascent 2026 engine project and instead become a Mercedes customer team. The decision has taken a wrecking ball to Renault\u2019s rich four-decade history as an engine manufacturer, but it is a pragmatic call given the long-running feeling that the company remained behind its competitors in terms of outright performance and reliability. <\/p>\n

McLaren\u2019s recent success as a Mercedes customer team can act as inspiration. It was a decision driven by Briatore.\u201cIt is a partnership we are very much excited about,\u201d Briatore said of the Alpine-Mercedes axis.<\/p>\n

The decision has taken a wrecking ball to Renault\u2019s rich four-decade history as an engine manufacturer.<\/p>\n

While relinquishing works status is a bold gamble, it does at least remove one of the long-running competitive question marks over Alpine, while also eliminating the recurring aspect of the chassis operations and power unit side blaming each other for any issues. Having a Mercedes PU in the back of the A526 provides a benchmark to three other teams and, as Briatore infers, means there\u2019s no excuses. Alpine\u2019s advantage\u2014if it can be called thus\u2014of being last in 2025 means that, at least for the opening half of the year, it will have the greatest wind tunnel and CFD time (along with newcomers Cadillac) under Formula 1\u2019s sliding scale.<\/p>\n

\"f1JOSEP LAGO\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Flavio Briatore with Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a group of people who want to take this team to the next level and prove that last year was a blip,\u201d said pragmatic Managing Director Steve Nielsen, who last year returned to Alpine for a third stint.<\/p>\n

Alpine at least has some consistency in the driver line-up, with Pierre Gasly having committed his future through 2028, while Franco Colapinto has been retained after racing most of the 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big opportunity for us as a team and it\u2019s a big opportunity for us drivers,\u201d Gasly said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be very technical and there will be a lot of things to learn, probably to adapt to, but it\u2019s exciting. At the end of the day, we all want to win. The team has done a fantastic job over the winter, preparing as best as they could. Obviously last year was quite tough but I think it actually made us a lot closer as a team. We managed to really dig into the work we were doing all together and that put us in a much stronger position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

Colapinto failed to score a point in 2025 amid Alpine\u2019s struggles, and came in for criticism from Briatore, but a first full off-season\u2014after two partial campaigns\u2014means the Argentine can finally tackle a season from the off. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in my career, I have had a proper off-season in preparation for a full-time year right from testing and the first race,\u201d Colapinto said. \u201cFor me, this is really important as I feel a real part of the project and it means I can really work hard with everyone at the team from the beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will just try to learn as much as possible in the early races, keep building, keep growing and hopefully that will mean we can be competitive as a team.\u201d<\/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":"There\u2019s nowhere to hide for Alpine heading into the 2026 season. A team that started out Formula 1\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,782,184857,784,578,576,577,1642,184856,82,184740],"class_list":{"0":"post-448651","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-content-type-news","11":"tag-contentid-41df7134-65d0-4dbf-b342-3fa782ce1256","12":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","13":"tag-f1","14":"tag-formula-1","15":"tag-formula1","16":"tag-locale-us","17":"tag-shorttitle-nowhere-to-hide-for-2025s-slowest-team","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-subsection-formula-one"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448651","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=448651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}