Alpine should matter more than it does.
It’s a French team, backed by a national carmaker, with an F1 title on its résumé and some of the best facilities in Europe. It has money. It has brains. It even has occasional flashes of brilliance.
But year after year, Alpine stays stuck — somewhere between ambition and dysfunction. A team with real potential, but no rhythm. No momentum. No identity that sticks long enough to mean anything.
This isn’t a midfield team by design.
It’s a team that keeps accidentally ending up there.
The Renault Legacy
Let’s rewind.
This is the same team that won back-to-back championships in 2005 and 2006 with Fernando Alonso — ending Ferrari’s Schumacher-era dominance and reminding everyone that innovation and hunger could still beat tradition.
But even then, it was an odd kind of excellence: temporary, reactive, and driven more by a moment in time than a long-term culture of winning.
Renault has always been weird like that in F1. They build great engines, then fall behind. They hire world champions, then lose them. They rebrand. They retreat. They reappear.
It’s not that they can’t be great. It’s that they can’t seem to decide what kind of team they want to be.
Enter Alpine (2021–)
In 2021, Renault became Alpine. New name, new colors, same problems. The rebrand was supposed to signal a more modern, agile, competitive project — something younger, hungrier, more “F1 2.0.”
Instead, it’s felt like a redecoration of the same inconsistent structure.
Yes, they won a race. Yes, they’ve had strong results. But every step forward is followed by two side steps and a knee-high tripwire.
- Technical team shakeups mid-season.
- Drivers falling out with management.
- Upgrades that arrive, then stall out.
- Power unit promises that fizzle under pressure.
Alpine knows how to race. But modern F1 isn’t just about racing. It’s about structure. Cohesion. Long-term, data-driven execution. And Alpine is still operating like it’s 2006.
The facilities are good. The strategy is not. The mindset is stuck in a decade where raw talent and national pride were enough to carry you.
They aren’t anymore.
The Piastri Meltdown
Want to understand Alpine in one event? Rewatch the 2022 Piastri saga.
They had the best rookie prospect on the market. They developed him. Had him under contract (they thought). Then mismanaged the timeline, assumed he’d stay, and publicly announced him as a 2023 driver.
Within hours, Piastri rejected the seat. Publicly. On Twitter.
It was brutal. And it exposed everything wrong with Alpine’s internal operations — slow, outdated, and reliant on unspoken assumptions instead of watertight processes.
Oscar left. And Alpine was left looking foolish.
Driver Drama and Internal Shuffles
Alpine’s recent lineups have been talented but tense.
- Alonso came back, delivered results, and got fed up with the internal politics.
- Ocon won a race, pushed hard, but clashed with nearly every teammate he’s ever had.
- Gasly arrived with potential and French synergy, but the relationship feels… tepid.
They aren’t lacking drivers. They’re lacking clarity. About who they are. What they’re building. And how they’re supposed to get there.
Leadership turnover hasn’t helped. CEO changes. Team principal exits. Technical heads in and out. There’s no through-line — no single vision that defines this era of Alpine.
Just fog.
What Makes Alpine Alpine?
Right now? Frustration.
This team is like a brilliant but unreliable friend. You want to believe in them. You remember the good years. You know they’ve got the talent. But they keep ghosting you after making promises they can’t keep.
Alpine is fast on Fridays, confused on Sundays, and lost on Mondays.
They build decent cars. But they don’t build projects.
They have the funding. But they don’t have the focus.
They’re French — beautifully so — proud, stylish, passionate, but stubborn. And until they embrace a modern, structured, relentless approach to racing, they’ll keep watching customer teams (like McLaren) pass them with less money and more urgency.
This isn’t about potential anymore. It’s about execution.
Because in 2025, Alpine is still trying to matter.
And for a team with their history — that should not be the case.
| Field | Info |
| Full Team Name | BWT Alpine F1 Team |
| Base | Enstone, United Kingdom (chassis); Viry-Châtillon, France (engine) |
| Founded | 2021 (as Alpine F1 Team; formerly Renault, Lotus, Benetton) |
| Owner | Groupe Renault |
| Team Principal | Bruno Famin (interim, as of 2025) |
| Technical Director | Matt Harman (Chassis), Eric Meignan (Power Unit) |
| Engine Supplier | Renault (in-house engine program) |
| Driver Lineup (2025) | Esteban Ocon (#31), Pierre Gasly (#10) |
| Test/Reserve Drivers | Jack Doohan, Victor Martins |
| Constructors’ Titles | 2 (as Renault, 2005–2006) |
| Drivers’ Titles | 2 (Fernando Alonso, 2005–2006) |
| First Race | Bahrain GP 2021 (as Alpine); legacy begins with Benetton in 1986 |
| First Win | Hungarian GP 2021 (Esteban Ocon, Alpine) |
| Total Wins | 21 (including Benetton/Renault eras; 1 under Alpine) |
| Title Sponsors | BWT, Castrol, Microsoft, Binance, Kappa |
