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Championship position: 6th (61 points) It’s all about perspective. Fundamentally, sixth place remains underwhelming for a team with rich heritage, which entered the 2020s targeting reeling in the front-runners, and which does—despite the inability or hesitancy to promote the fact—have majority ownership from a major automotive brand. But sixth place is a significant upswing for a team that slumped to a distant last in the 2025 standings and which has had a tumultuous few years of chopping and changing personnel. Flavio Briatore’s decision to mothball Renault’s engine project and hook up with Mercedes was unpopular, and led to Alpine relinquishing works status, but it has facilitated the team’s step forward into the midfield. The A526 has been a fundamentally mid-pack car, with nothing especially standout, and nothing especially wrong, though it has struggled more relative to the opposition on high-speed circuits. Reliability has been a strength of Alpine’s—not a sentence written often in previous year—with the only retirement so far suffered by Pierre Gasly in Miami, where he was sent into a dramatic but harmless roll by a helpless Liam Lawson. However, the recent grands prix have been less rewarding. Racing Bulls’ surge, and Audi’s progression, has taken some of the shine from Alpine’s campaign, suggesting that in-season development remains a relative weakness. Of Alpine’s 61 points, just four have been accrued across the past four events. “We simply have to admit that they have done a better job in this phase of the year,” Alpine boss Flavio Briatore said of Racing Bulls. “We know that developments and upgrades are coming very soon, and we need to make big jumps that we know we're capable of.” Alpine’s return to the midfield has enabled Gasly to return to his pugnacious best. Realistically Alpine can’t do better than Gasly, and Gasly can’t do better than Alpine, so it’s in the interests of both to knuckle down and move forwards – as shown by last year’s renewal through 2028. Seventh place in Japan was an excellent drive while Monaco podium was fortunate but demonstrated Gasly’s ability to seize an opportunity. Franco Colapinto is finally benefiting from stability, after his partial season with Williams in 2024 and late entry at Alpine in 2025, and is now looking like he belongs in Formula 1. After a slow start, Colapinto enjoyed a breakthrough weekend in Miami, leading the midfield en route to seventh, and is doing a solid job of staking his claim for a renewal into 2027. Away from on-track matters, an impending title partnership with Gucci from 2027 will no doubt enhance the team’s brand outside of Formula 1, as well as leading to a revised look and a sizable financial injection. Alpine has so far ticked the box of returning to respectability in 2026, and now the target has to be to close in on the top four teams, rather than become entrenched in the mid-pack for another regulation cycle. U.K.-based Phillip Horton started covering Grands Prix while still at university and swiftly deemed that writing about Formula 1 and the behind-the-scenes machinations was much more engaging than reading centuries-old novels. Degree gained, he went on to cover the sport full-time from 2014 and is as intrigued and excited by the destinations Formula 1 visits during its lengthy annual world tour as the racing itself. Phillip joined Autoweek in 2021 and while he has just about learned to spell in American English he has yet to find anywhere in America that makes a proper cup of tea.