What’s going on at Alpine 2025? The weak season 2024 was concealed by a surprising double podium in Brazil, which catapulted the French racing team in sixth place, but in the current season the results are not correct at the back and front – although the scouts are even better than last year.
Because at that time you only had nine points in the account at the same time, but it was better to classify two places. Because Williams and clean completely fell, Alpine was eighth, in 2025 you even have two points more, but is the last last – proud 15 points are missing on the penultimate.
The competition simply scores much better this year, the back field is much closer together. “This makes some of our weaknesses many times more clearly. And that is exactly what we are trying to deal with,” says technology director David Sanchez, who joined Alpine a little more than a year ago.
What could alpine help? “I always tell people: abrupt is like paracetamol – it solves every problem,” says Sanchez. In general, however, offset is not the big problem of the A525. “I think we already have downforce, especially in fast curves we are not necessarily bad,” he says.
In addition, the striving for maximum output in Formula 1 is no longer so common. “I think everyone has now understood – especially with these cars – that an extremely pointed car just doesn’t work,” said Sanchez.
“What we find out about these cars: They are so fast and have so much grip in high-speed passages that, as soon as you get to the border, it becomes unstable somewhere. And the driver immediately feels that. But I would not say that this is only due to the aerodynamic properties.”
Energy inhibits alpine in the race
Alpine’s big weakness is more else: “We know that we are behind energy recovery. In some races, our decisions sometimes influence so much that we are restricted in our possibilities.”
This became clear last weekend in Spielberg. “In Austria we tried to be a little more aggressive to look better in the race. But that made our rear tires much more stressed – and the consequences were correspondingly great,” said the chief of technology.
Pierre Gasly had no chance in the race and fell far back in the course of the race. Instead of getting points from tenth place, the Frenchman ended up in 13th place, although Max Verstappen, Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Alexander Albon had left three drivers from the extended top field.
In qualifying properly, in the race without a chance
The big performance differences between qualifying and races have been noticed at Alpine this year: Gasly had already started in the top 10 six times, but only two times. Is that what makes the car quick on a round, maybe a disadvantage in the race?
“This is a question that we constantly ask ourselves,” says Sanchez. “Are we perhaps too aggressive in qualifying? Do we have to do something else in the race? There is no simple answer to that. A car that is good in qualifying gets everything out there. In the race, on the other hand, it is all about how we manage the tires and the overall package.”
Only: In view of the clear deficit in the World Cup, it could be difficult for Alpine to get away from the last place, because because in 2026 a new regulations are just around the corner, there will hardly be any improvements for the current season. A look into the future is also what Alpine encourages.
“We know that there are great opportunities for us in 2026,” says Sanchez. “We may not have developed as aggressively this season as others. But when we see how the car develops for next year and how quickly this is going on, we are quite satisfied with our decision.”