Alpine: Championship DNA, Identity Crisis

Next in our 2026 pre-season deep dive series, Formula Fools digs into one of the grid’s most confusing teams: BWT Alpine Formula One Team.

Because here’s the truth — Alpine might be a new name, but the team underneath it absolutely knows how to win.

David and Skin break down the real story of “Team Enstone”: the organisation that powered Benetton’s rise, became Renault, and delivered back-to-back World Championships in 2005 and 2006 with Fernando Alonso. This isn’t a midfield operation pretending to be something bigger — it’s a proven championship outfit wearing a modern badge.

Then comes the reset era. In 2021, Renault rebrands the team as Alpine, chasing a cleaner identity and long-term works-team ambition. The results? Flashes of promise, steady midfield competitiveness… and then a brutal collapse in 2025 that leaves Alpine dead last and forces another hard rethink.

That rethink defines 2026.

With Flavio Briatore returning to a leadership role, Steve Nielsen hired to stabilise day-to-day operations, and a major strategic pivot to Mercedes power units and gearboxes, Alpine are effectively admitting something important: the old way wasn’t working.

We look at Pierre Gasly’s role as lead driver, Franco Colapinto’s opportunity in a rebuilding team, and ask the question Alpine fans have been asking for years:

Is this finally a clean reset back toward the front —

or just another cycle in a team that can’t quite decide what it wants to be?

This episode isn’t about what Alpine used to be.

It’s about whether a sleeping giant with real championship DNA can wake up — before time runs out.

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