The French owned Alpine team are having a season to forget. They lost another team principal when Oliver Oakes quit the organisation in May this year, having only been appointed following the 2024 summer break.
Alpine are currently last in the constructor standings despite Pierre Gasly having scored on four occasions, the most recent being his best finish of the year in P6 at the British Grand Prix. The Renault owned team’s car this season has been difficult to drive as evidenced by both Franco Colapinto and Jack Doohan failing to score at all in the second seat.
Now the team have announced they will abandon any further development on the A525 chassis, instead preferring to concentrate on their 2026 car. Renault will cease to produce F1 power units next season and the team will acquire its engines from the Mercedes high performance power units division based in Brackley.
Technical director admits Alpine failings
The future of the team has been called into doubt, given its five year plan to return to the front of the grid now lies in tatters and its proponents have all left the Renault organisation. Ex-Renault team boss, Flavio Briatore has been recruited to resolve the teams current deficiencies and reports suggest he is trying to engage the sacked Christian Horner to head up the team.
In the run up to the Belgian Grand Prix, the team’s executive technical director, David Sanchez, claims he is encouraged by the development of the 2026 car and understands why the A525 has underperformed.
“We know what we’ve designed and developed – which we’re happy with,” he told assembled media. “But what we’re seeing is there is so much convergence between all the cars this year compared to last year that some of our weaknesses are magnified by an order of magnitude. So that’s what we’re trying to deal with at the moment.”
Each weekend the team are unsure as to how their car will fare at a variety of circuit layouts and weather conditions which is evidenced by Gasly’s qualifying performances which range from P4 in Bahrain to P17 in Monaco. Sanchez reveals the A525 package has issues with downforce, something which becomes more apparent where the corners are on the slow side.
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Alpine quit developing 2025 car
“I tell people ‘downforce is like paracetamol – it fixes every problem.’ I think the downforce that we have somehow, in high-speed corners, I think we’re not too shy. We know we’re on the back foot with energy recovery. Some races like Silverstone we are exposed and this is sometimes biasing our choices of downforce levels. In Austria we made some choices to try and be a bit racier, but this of course puts a bit more stress on our rear tyres and the consequences are quite heavy.”
Alpine have now ceased the development of their 2025, something Sanchez claims the team are already benefitting from in their improving simulations for their 2026 challenger.
“We know that for us there are big opportunities in 2026,” he explained. “We may not have been pushing so deep in the season with developments like some others, but when we see how next year’s car is evolving – and the rate is quite high – we are quite happy with our choice.”
With half the season remaining, this will hardly be music in the ears of their drivers, particularly for Franco Colapinto who is now engaged on a race by race basis. The Argentinian has performed worse than his predecessor Jack Doohan who was benched after six race weekends this year, and the Australian recently expressed hopes he might regain his Alpine drive in the autumn.
No return for Doohan
With twelve race weekends complete, the team has plenty of data on how both drivers have performed, although their average starting positions are separated by just 0.25 of a place. In Austria, Toto Wolff confirmed he has had a number of conversations with Flavio Briatore over Mercedes releasing their reserve driver Valtteri Bottas to replace the struggling Argentinian driver.
Yet in an interview with F1.com, Pierre Gasly rubbished the idea that Alpine would be recruiting an experienced driver alongside him. “I don’t think that’s the case,” he said. “I think it’s a lot of noise. I think the car, I’m showing every weekend what we can do with it, doing a very good job on Saturdays and putting it in places that on paper we all agree we should not really be.
“It’s just tricky, it’s a very tight midfield and we are at the back of it. There will always be noise, especially considering what happened earlier in the year [Doohan being replaced], but I think at the end of the day we should just focus on the work ahead,” concluded the French F1 driver.
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Horner tipped for Alpine top job
Bottas is a favourite to join the Cadillac team next season, but would jump at the chance to get back behind the wheel of a Formula One car this year. There are reports that Briatore, who is firm friends with Christian Horner, is currently negotiating with the sacked Red Bull boss for him to join the Enstone based team. Although Horner is believed to want equity shares in his next F1 venture, something Red Bull never offered to him nor Adrian Newey.
With Horner currently on ‘garden leave’ it may be some time before his final payoff from the energy drinks company is finalised, and his £20m remuneration is compensated for given his contract ran until 2030. A number in the region of £100m settlement would put Horner in a position to take an equity stake in the Alpine team.
Alpine have been linked with Kimi Antoneli for 2026, as Toto Wolff struggles to juggle his lineup to accommodate a potential move from Max Verstappen. Yet the world champion remains tight lipped about his future intentions and George Russell at times has sounded like a worried man.
Since the sacking of Christian Horner just days after the British Grand Prix, the great and the good from the paddock have been parsing the tea leaves in an attempt to understand how all this affects the future of world champion Max Verstappen.
One report from Germany suggested that Verstappen wold be holding a press conference this weekend in Spa, where he would reveal he was leaving his Red Bull family to join the Mercedes F1 team.
Were this to be the case, then the consensus view would shift towards the notion that Max leaving the team was representative of the view that the rats are leaving the sinking ship – following Horner’s swift exit….. READ MORE
