Alpine’s Stunning Turnaround: From F1’s Worst Team to Midfield… read more 👇 details in the comments section
Just a season ago, Alpine looked completely lost in Formula 1. The French outfit endured a disastrous campaign, finishing at the very bottom of the constructors’ standings with only 22 points to their name. Their performance was so poor that they ended the year 48 points behind Sauber, a team that was hardly setting the world alight itself.
What made Alpine’s struggles even more concerning was the fact that every single point came from one driver: Pierre Gasly. The team lacked pace, suffered reliability problems, and fielded a car that appeared uncompetitive in almost every area. There were few signs that a significant recovery was on the horizon.
Fast forward to the current season, however, and the picture looks remarkably different.
After five rounds, Alpine sit fifth in the constructors’ championship, a position that few would have predicted after last year’s misery. The team has already collected 35 points, comfortably surpassing its entire total from the previous season. More importantly, those points are not coming from one driver alone.
Gasly remains a key figure for the team and has contributed 20 points so far, but Franco Colapinto has emerged as a valuable partner with 15 points of his own. That balance has transformed Alpine from a team dependent on individual brilliance into one capable of consistently scoring with both cars.
Their most recent performance in Canada highlighted just how far they have come. Colapinto delivered an impressive sixth-place finish, while Gasly secured eighth. Together, the result represented one of Alpine’s strongest weekends in recent memory and reinforced the idea that the team is becoming a genuine midfield force.
The improvement cannot simply be explained by rivals underperforming. Alpine’s progress appears to be the result of genuine gains in performance. The car now regularly challenges for Q3 appearances, has enough pace to compete with established midfield rivals, and no longer looks out of place on the grid.
A major factor behind this resurgence has been the team’s adaptation to the latest regulations. While several competitors have struggled to unlock consistent performance, Alpine seem to have found a direction that is delivering results.
Gasly’s role in the turnaround should not be underestimated. Even during the team’s darkest periods, he consistently extracted the maximum from difficult machinery. His experience and ability to score points when opportunities arise have provided stability throughout Alpine’s rebuilding process.
However, the biggest difference this season is the support he now receives from Colapinto. Successful constructors’ campaigns require contributions from both sides of the garage. One driver performing miracles can only take a team so far, something Red Bull learned when Max Verstappen frequently outscored his former teammate Sergio Perez by huge margins.
With Gasly and Colapinto delivering points on a regular basis, Alpine have established a strong foundation. Their combined efforts have placed them 14 points clear of RB in sixth place, making them the current leaders of the midfield battle behind the traditional front-runners of McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Red Bull.
Despite the encouraging start, caution remains necessary. Alpine have shown flashes of promise before, only to slip backwards when expectations began to rise. Five races represent only a small portion of a long Formula 1 season, and maintaining momentum will be a significant challenge.
There are already reports suggesting that the team could introduce a major upgrade package at Monaco. If successful, it could strengthen Alpine’s position and provide further evidence that this improvement is sustainable rather than temporary.
Monaco may not be the ultimate measure of outright performance, but it rewards confidence, strong qualifying pace, and operational excellence. Those are areas where Alpine have recently shown encouraging progress.
The bigger question now is whether this surge marks a temporary high point or the beginning of a genuine rise up the grid. While it is still too early to place them among Formula 1’s elite, the evidence suggests they are no longer the struggling outfit that finished last a year ago.
The standings tell the story. Alpine are fifth. They have already exceeded last season’s points total. Both drivers are contributing. For a team that looked destined for another difficult era, that represents remarkable progress.
Alpine may not be ready to challenge the sport’s biggest names, but they have undoubtedly become a team capable of making the midfield sit up and take notice.