The Alpine’s Renault power unit gives away an average of around 0.4sec of lap time on deployment to the Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda, depending upon track layout. But the loss is not just about deployment. It’s about the energy recovery phase too, where the Renault motor lags. Its less-efficient energy recovery feeds into the deployment shortfall but it’s also about how that energy recovery on the rear axle affects the braking performance – especially into low-speed corners as the downforce is falling rapidly off the car. In other words, exactly where the car is struggling most.
Franco Colapinto, who crashed the car heavily in last week’s Hungaroring tyre test, has struggled to come to terms with this particular trait after creating a great impression with his speed in the Mercedes-powered Williams last year. “I’m lacking confidence with the car,” he admitted before Hungary. “I’m struggling to turn in and come into corners, which is affecting my performance.”
Technical Director David Sanchez touched on the problem recently, and how it compounds into other areas of performance. “Some of our weaknesses are magnified by orders of magnitude at different tracks,” he said. “We are not too shy in high-speed downforce. But tracks with high energy recovery we are exposed and this sometimes influences our chosen downforce levels. But that then puts more stress on the tyres. Austria was extreme in this and we suffered severe degradation.”
Next year’s clean sweep regulation change could jumble up the order to an unrecognisable degree and so to an extent all bets are off. But what we do know is that the Alpine will be enjoying a Mercedes power unit and might be expected to lose the Renault’s difficulty in energy recovery. “Next year’s car is a very different beast in terms of characteristics,” says Sanchez, “but it’s still an F1 car and to go fast will still rely on downforce and balance.”
There’s nothing to suggest the Enstone team’s car is badly lagging on downforce and the only serious balance problem seems to be in a very specific speed range associated with braking into slow corners, something which may well be simply switched off next year. Despite its current last position at the halfway pause in ’25, this is not a team which should be written off for ’26.