Alpine Mid-Season Review: On the road to redemption
- Peter Johnson
- 2 hours ago
- 7 min read
As we prepare to head into the second half of the 2026 Formula One season after a lengthy summer break, our Formula One writers take you through the state of play with each team on the grid. Fresh from the worst season in the team’s history, Alpine has taken a significant step forward in the first phase of F1’s new era of regulations.
This time last year, Alpine was in a mess. Team Principal of just nine months Oliver Oakes resigned under a cloud in May 2025, having only assumed the role in August 2024. Rookie driver Jack Doohan had been demoted after just six races, but replacement Franco Colapinto fared little better. To top it all off, the A525, Alpine’s car for the season, was the slowest of last year’s cohort.
The Enstone team was in a dark place and recorded its worst-ever F1 season, coming last in the constructors’ standings and achieving just six points finishes all year. This completed an alarming descent over the course of the ground-effect era, which the team had begun with the fourth-fastest car in 2022.
How has Alpine fared so far?
For a long time, hopes were pinned on 2026 for a step back towards the front, supported by a switch to Mercedes engines. It hasn’t been a blockbuster season, but that step forward has certainly materialised.
Scoring in nine of the 11 rounds so far, Alpine have almost tripled their points total from last season by the summer break, with Pierre Gasly’s reinstated podium in Monaco the standout triumph.
Flavio Briatore, who was boss at Team Enstone during Renault’s championship-winning years, returned as de facto Team Principal last May, which has also given the team a fresh impetus that had been missing.
However, looking at the results in a little more detail, life is already getting tougher for the team after a positive start to the year.
In the early stages of the season, Alpine pulled clear of the rest of the midfield to lie fifth in the constructors’ standings, even jostling with Red Bull in the opening rounds. Pierre Gasly qualified ahead of Max Verstappen in Australia, China and Japan.
Since then, while the Enstone team has continued to score points, some of the early-season promise has been diluted. The team has since been leapfrogged by Racing Bulls, who are now widely considered to have the fifth-fastest car, and the points-scoring has dried up.
An average finishing position of 9.1 in the first seven races (up to Barcelona) is significantly better than the average of 11.9 in the four races since, a run during which Gasly and Colapinto have scored just four points between them.
This season will be a race of development, so a short run of worse results is not a cause of immediate concern.
However, having spent the entire previous era of F1 gradually slipping backwards, Alpine must now find a way to hold position.
Another significant development from last year, alongside the car itself, is the emergence of Franco Colapinto as a real contender for points.
The Argentine driver struggled throughout 2025, being promoted from his role as reserve driver at the season’s quarter-way mark in favour of Jack Doohan. He had previously shown promise at Williams, when he scored points in two of his first four races after a mid-season swap with Logan Sargeant.
However, he drew a blank in his 18 races for Alpine last year, with an 11th place at Zandvoort the only occasion he came close to scoring.
He was perhaps fortunate to keep his seat, given some of Briatore’s comments throughout the year, which included describing the Argentine as “lost” and suggesting it was “not the right time to have Franco in F1.”
However, a transformation in 2026 has meant Colapinto may already have shored up his seat for next season. His boss recently told F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast: “He's improving a lot – mentally, technically, relationship with the team.
“I don't know our level of talent we [will arrive at] with him. But sure enough, a talent. This is 100 per cent.”
The statistics back this up, too. While he is yet to beat Gasly regularly, he is performing admirably as a rear gunner, scoring points in six races and even beating the Frenchman in the last two.
He also achieved his highest-ever career finish two Grands Prix in a row, finishing seventh in Miami and sixth in Canada.
It is not his performance relative to Gasly, though, which is the biggest indicator of his improvement. He did, after all, beat the Frenchman in seven of their 18 races as teammates last season.
The Argentine was rather accident-prone in 2025, with shunts at Imola, Silverstone, Interlagos and Baku to name just a few. This year, until his crash in Practice in Budapest, he has been rather error-free.
In fact, Colapinto is the only driver besides Lewis Hamilton to finish every race this season, with Alpine’s only retirement so far in 2026 courtesy of Gasly in Miami.
Drivers' Head-to-Head Performance
In a direct comparison, the numbers do favour Gasly over Colapinto. The Frenchman has won the qualifying battle on nine out of 11 occasions, but he leads the Grand Prix head-to-head just 7-4.
The sprint battle is closer, with the pair tied 2-2 in sprint qualifying, while Gasly leads 3-1 in races.
Gasly is the team’s undisputed star talent, and his podium in Monaco was the latest evidence that few drivers are better at cleaning up scraps during chaotic races and scoring a huge result. His podium in Brazil in 2019 and his Monza victory in 2020 for Alpha Tauri provide further such proof.
On the other side of the garage, Colapinto has managed to harness his raw speed and keep his car out of the wall, and the results are starting to come.
Ultimately for Alpine, though, the head-to-head battle is not particularly important. Gasly would usually be expected to outperform his teammate, and is indeed doing so. Neither driver appears at risk of losing their seat next year and both seem to get on and work well together. The key now is driving the team forward.
Best Moment
Without question, Alpine’s best moment of the season was Gasly’s podium in Monaco — more specifically, the moment in the Barcelona paddock when the Frenchman found he had been reinstated to third following a post-race penalty in the Principality.
Gasly was one of many drivers to receive a penalty for speeding in the pitlane, but unlike the others did not serve it during a pitstop. He was demoted at the finish line, and Alpine were later able to prove that a fault with the technology at the pit entrance had resulted in his penalty.
More widely, the incident did set a potentially troublesome precedent for teams and drivers choosing not to serve penalties during the race and fighting the case after, but for the time being that is not Alpine’s problem.
Worst Moment
It is to Alpine’s great credit that there are very few contenders here, with Gasly’s crash with Liam Lawson in Miami the only standout negative moment. The incident wasn’t even the Frenchman’s fault as the Racing Bulls driver locked up at the final hairpin and sent him into a barrel roll.
Gasly had run well that weekend, scoring a point in the sprint and qualifying ninth for the Grand Prix. He was fighting with the Kiwi on the fringes of the top ten when the incident occurred at the end of Lap 4, and would likely have scored a couple of points.
It didn’t work out too badly for the team, though, with Colapinto capitalising on the drama in front to score what was then a career-best seventh-placed finish.
Looking Ahead
The key for Alpine now is to continue developing the car at least at the same rate as the other leading midfield teams, especially Racing Bulls. It is already clear that the big four teams will remain the big four for this regulation era, so Alpine should have fifth in the constructors’ as the target.
Managing Director Steve Nielsen said as much prior to the summer break, describing his team’s “development war” with Racing Bulls and adding that Aston Martin and Williams are expected to bring plenty more upgrades this season.
A lot will depend on the development of the Mercedes engine, which is out of Alpine’s hands. However, given Mercedes have been granted extra engine upgrade tokens relative to Red Bull-Ford — who power Racing Bulls — the Enstone team should have an advantage over most of their midfield rivals.
It already appears that a run of stability has helped the team, with Flavio Briatore’s return to the front lines helping to set a new course. Given the short-lived tenures of Otmar Szafnauer, Bruno Famin and then Oliver Oakes, it was no wonder that the team had begun to drift.
Alpine now has all the tools to become a serious force in F1, and fifth place in the championship would be a good place to start.
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