Alpine has announced their 2026 season launch date. Mark your calendars for January 23rd in Barcelona, where the team currently occupying dead last in the championship will unveil their new livery. Not the actual car, mind you. Just the paint job. Because when you’ve just endured the worst season in 40 years, priorities are everything.
The French outfit becomes the fourth team to confirm launch plans, scheduling their event precisely three days before pre-season testing begins at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Cutting it rather fine, aren’t they? But then again, this is the same team that abandoned their 2025 development programme in April, so meticulous planning clearly isn’t their strongest suit.
When Last Place Demands a Fresh Start
Alpine finished the 2025 constructors’ championship in tenth place. Dead last. Unprecedented for the Enstone operation in four decades. Their response? Stop developing the car in April and pray that 2026 brings salvation through new technical regulations and Mercedes power units.
The team’s switching from factory Renault power to customer Mercedes engines for the new era. Which sounds promising until you remember they’re abandoning their own engine programme not because it succeeded, but because it spectacularly didn’t. Nothing says “we’ve got this sorted” quite like admitting defeat and buying someone else’s homework.
Steve Nielsen, Alpine’s managing director, insists the team needs “patience, common sense and consistency.” How refreshing. Management stability from a team that’s changed more bosses than Mercedes has questionable sponsorship deals. Nielsen’s talking about grinding through millions of details whilst the clock ticks towards a regulation overhaul that could either save them or bury them deeper.
Gasly’s Gamble: Sacrificing 2025 for 2026 Glory
Pierre Gasly remains remarkably upbeat about Alpine’s strategic decision to write off an entire season. The Frenchman signed a long-term deal through 2028, presumably after being assured that 2026 wouldn’t be quite as catastrophic as 2025.
“If it gives me better results next year, I literally do not care about this season – and it will be all worth it. Because the reality is what we could have fought for this year is still not good enough for us.” – Pierre Gasly
Fair enough. What Alpine “could have fought for” in 2025 was probably eighth place on a good day. Hardly worth the engineering resources. But banking everything on a regulation reset? That’s the F1 equivalent of putting your mortgage on red at the roulette table.
Gasly continues: “These couple of weeks or months can potentially give us a head start on some other teams and bring much better success.” Potentially. Possibly. Perhaps. The language of hope from a driver who’s watched his team score points precisely once whilst he was driving.
Colapinto’s Questionable Promotion
Franco Colapinto will partner Gasly again in 2026, having been confirmed last month after Alpine apparently spent weeks debating whether his form was “up to par.” Which is hilarious considering the Argentine hasn’t scored a single point yet with one race remaining.
The bar for “up to par” at Alpine must be subterranean if zero points in multiple races meets the standard. But when you’re rebuilding from the bottom, perhaps standards become negotiable? Colapinto gets another year to prove himself, which is generous considering most drivers need to actually score points to keep their seats.
Both drivers will be present at the Barcelona launch alongside senior management, including Nielsen and Flavio Briatore. Yes, Briatore’s still involved. Because when you need organisational stability and ethical leadership, naturally you turn to the man banned from F1 for race-fixing. What could possibly go wrong?
The Launch That Isn’t Really a Launch
Here’s the brilliant bit: Alpine’s announcing a “season launch” where they’ll reveal precisely nothing of substance. No actual car. Just livery. Paint and sponsor logos on what’s presumably a show car or last year’s chassis wearing fancy dress.
The timing’s equally inspired. January 23rd gives them exactly three days before the first pre-season test begins. Three whole days to let the new livery sink in before they actually have to prove whether their 2026 gamble has paid off. Why give yourselves more time to generate buzz when you can squeeze everything into the minimum possible window?
Compare that to Red Bull and Racing Bulls, who are launching on January 15th in Detroit with actual fanfare. Or Aston Martin, who’ve scheduled February 9th and will actually reveal their 2026 car. Alpine’s opted for the “quick announcement before testing” approach. Strategic brilliance or admission they’ve got nothing exciting to show? You decide.
The Mercedes Lifeline
Alpine’s transition from works team to customer operation represents either pragmatic reality or spectacular failure, depending on your perspective. They’re trading their troubled Renault engines for Mercedes power units just as F1’s electrical systems undergo massive changes.
The 2026 regulations bring nearly three times the electrical energy, with the MGU-H being removed entirely. Perfect timing to abandon your own engine programme and rely on someone else’s interpretation of rules that haven’t been properly tested yet. What’s the worst that could happen?
Mercedes will supply engines to four teams in 2026: themselves, McLaren, Williams, and Alpine. Which means if Mercedes gets it wrong, one quarter of the grid suffers together. Comforting thought for Gasly and Colapinto as they prepare to trust their careers to technology they had no hand in developing.
The Enstone Curse Continues
This is the same Enstone facility that won championships with Renault back when Alonso was young and hopeful. The same factory that produced race-winning cars for Lotus. The same operation that’s now reduced to finishing behind everyone whilst promising “next year will be different.”
Nielsen insists there’s passion and racing spirit throughout the organisation. Which is lovely. Passion doesn’t win races though, does it? Engineering excellence, strategic competence, and reliable machinery win races. Alpine’s demonstrated precious little of any of those lately.
The managing director admits Enstone has suffered from too many management changes recently. Understatement of the decade, that. When your team leadership changes more frequently than Red Bull dumps promising young drivers, institutional knowledge evaporates faster than Renault’s championship ambitions.
Will 2026 Actually Be Different?
Alpine’s betting everything on new regulations providing a reset opportunity. Fair enough. Regulation changes do occasionally shuffle the order. But betting your entire operation’s future on getting new rules right whilst abandoning a full season of development? That’s not strategy. That’s desperation wrapped in optimism.
The team has three pre-season tests totalling 11 days to sort their 2026 package before the season begins. Eleven days to validate a year’s worth of development decisions. Eleven days to discover whether abandoning 2025 was genius or catastrophic miscalculation.
So mark January 23rd in your diaries. Watch Alpine unveil their new livery in Barcelona. Admire the paint scheme. Listen to the optimistic speeches about fresh starts and championship ambitions. Then wait three days until testing begins and we discover whether any of it actually matters.
