Alpine secured just one point from the Australian GP, starting the 2026 season in unremarkable fashion. Given how early Alpine committed to prioritising these new regulations, their presence in Melbourne was forgettable.
Much like Williams, the French outfit are not where they want to be. Both teams entered this year with the objective of being closer to the front-runners, but appear to have actually regressed.
What makes Alpine unique, is their decision to abandon their own Renault engines and become a Mercedes customer team. On paper, the Mercedes engine appears the strongest on the grid.
However, for a variety of reasons, this looks to have had a negligible impact on Alpine’s trajectory. Pierre Gasly has assessed the situation in blunt terms.
Gasly reflects on A526’s baseline
Prior to 2023, Alpine were regularly at the front of the midfield. As a manufacturer team, they were had all the ingredients to take the necessary step to challenge the leaders.
Unfortunately for the Enstone-based operation, they spent several years going backwards. A series of disappointing seasons in 2024 and 2025 were accompanied with persistent instability and uncertainty regarding the team’s management.
After a variety of changes, including the appointment of Flavio Briatore, Alpine set ambitious targets for 2026.
During their season launch, the team confirmed top 6 finishes as their target. For the time being, this looks out of reach – with the A526 currently towards the back of the midfield pack in terms of performance.
Speaking after qualifying, Pierre Gasly was honest about the situation:
“Obviously I think we’re all disappointed, we want more more than that, and it’s just not good enough.
“On my side I’m pretty happy with the laps I put out there. I managed to be right on the limit of the car, which has been difficult to drive.
“So I think yeah, it’s a big change, still a lot of things which we need to work on – tyre prep, energy management, getting on top of all the new regs, set-up and chassis wise.”
Having joined Alpine to establish himself away from the Red Bull set-up in 2022, Gasly might have been optimistic about the team’s prospects.
However, despite putting tremendous emphasis on the 2026 regulations, Alpine find themselves further adrift from the front-runners than in previous years.
Gasly struck a slightly more optimistic note after securing a point on Sunday, but his underlying tone was still the same:
“Ultimately, pleased with that point. We’ll have to work hard to work more, because overall I think we slightly underperformed to what we expected.
“But yeah, still got a point out of it – and we need to build on that.”
The switch to Mercedes engines
When Alpine first announced their switch to Mercedes power for 2026, the reaction was mixed. On the one hand, the German manufacturer can consistently be trusted to produce an elite power unit.
At the same time, there are inherent disadvantages to being a customer team. Whilst Mercedes are obliged to give the same engines to their clients, they are not required to provide all the details on how to optimise its performance.
In short, Alpine outsourced a central component of these regulations to another team. Given that most teams (Red Bull, Aston Martin, Audi) are going in the opposite direction, questions could be asked about their direction.
To be clear, Alpine’s poor start is not because of the Mercedes engine. It seems clear that the A526 is sorely lacking from an aerodynamic perspective.
However, given that newcomes Audi have made a stronger start in their first year as a manufacturer, Gasly and Colapinto could be understood for being disappointed about their 2026 challenger so far.
In a sport where teams continue to increase their investment, Alpine’s move to abandon their manufacturer status seemed like an indication of half-hearted commitment.
Of course, there is plenty of time for the team to rectify the situation. Still, there will understandably be scepticism about the team’s chances of overturning such a big early deficit.