In Last Word On Sport’s series of 2024 F1 Reviews, we will turn to Alpine, who experienced a series of ups and downs with drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly.
2024 Season Sparks Hope for Alpine’s 2025
Alpine continued into the 2024 F1 season with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly leading their driver line-up. The team struggled from the outset as they faced significant issues with performance and internal operations.
However, what started as a campaign full of disappointment ended with a glimmer of hope, which was too late to salvage the year significantly. This is something for them to work with, placing them at an advantage compared to previous years.
Throughout the 2024 F1 Championship, Alpine scored 65 points and won the final race battle for sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship. They beat Haas by 7 points.
Pierre Gasly scored 42 of those points, finishing tenth in the Drivers’ standings, while Esteban Ocon tallied 23 points in his final year with the team.
Jack Doohan scored 0 points at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, his only race of the year, placing him last in the Drivers’ table. This holds no weight for 2025 and he starts with a clean slate to maximise his potential.
Early Struggles and Leadership Changes
Alpine suffered a poor start at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Ocon and Gasly qualified at the back of the grid and finished P17 and P18. The lacklustre start set the tone for the team’s early-season woes.
Behind the scenes, structural instability reflected the on-track struggles. Following the disappointment in Bahrain, Alpine underwent a leadership shakeup.
Technical leaders Matt Harman and Dirk de Beer departed and were replaced by a revised leadership setup with three technical directors. Joe Burnell oversaw engineering, David Wheater heralded aerodynamics and Ciaron Pilbeam was behind the performance.
Elsewhere, David Sanchez joined as Executive Technical Director while Flavio Briatore controversially returned to the F1 paddock as a special supervisor.
The early races brought little relief. The team failed to score points in the opening four rounds, with reliability issues and driver clashes further dampening progress.
Gasly retired in Saudi Arabia due to mechanical issues, while Monaco saw Ocon and Gasly collide, leading to criticism and internal disciplinary measures for the former driver.
For Alpine, each incident marked underperformance and instability throughout the first half of the season. Progress seemed far away as tensions grew.
READ MORE: 2024 F1 Review: A Season of Shifts and Surprises for Red Bull
Mid-Season Adjustments and Moments of Progress
The team’s first points came at the Miami Grand Prix, where Ocon scraped into tenth place. However, frustrations between drivers and management grew more apparent.
Ocon announced his departure at the end of the season, further destabilising morale.
By mid-season, Team Principal Bruno Famin stepped down and Oliver Oakes took over the helm after the Belgian Grand Prix.
At a time when the competition was heating up on the grid – Red Bull slowed down, McLaren and Ferrari stepped into their potential, and Mercedes gained wins with each driver after continual disappointment – Alpine looked lost.
Despite the instability, the team began to show small signs of improvement.
Revised technical strategies started to translate to results in isolated performances, suggesting the team’s overhauled leadership structure might have begun finally to pay off.
A Late-Season Surge
The turning point for Alpine came at the São Paulo Grand Prix, where the French team achieved their best result of the season. In a rare display of teamwork, Ocon and Gasly finished on the podium, claiming second and third places, respectively.
Their pace was so impressive that the race winner Max Verstappen thought he would not have caught Ocon up. This double podium, the team’s first under the Alpine banner, catapulted them from ninth to sixth in the Constructors’ Championship.
Pierre Gasly also set the momentum for 2025. The Frenchman became the first driver in F1 history to incur $0 in caused damage.
Pierre makes history as the first F1 driver to have not caused any damage during an entire F1 season 👏 pic.twitter.com/QEQ7t6RAFm
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) December 8, 2024
The performance in Brazil not only demonstrated the latent potential of the car but also highlighted the resilience of the team in overcoming a challenging season. Unbeknownst to fans, trouble was not far away.
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A Lack of Loyalty
Unfortunately for Alpine, their most significant action for many in 2024 was their treatment of Esteban Ocon.
After the Qatar Grand Prix, the Enstone-based team announced that Ocon had raced his final Grand Prix for the team. 2025 driver Jack Doohan would replace him to gain the necessary on-track experience.
Under the Qatari lights, Ocon retired on Lap 1 after a collision with Nico Hülkenberg and Franco Colapinto.
His final race in an Alpine meant that fans only saw a glimpse of him, the driver who gave the team their first win in Hungary in 2021 and withstood five years of mediocre seasons, beating teammates and aiding car development alike.
While practicality was prioritised, they wasted an opportunity to honour a driver who gave his all for the team.
The Frenchman himself shared an apology via social media to the hardworking team members at Enstone and Viry. He had planned to race in Abu Dhabi and bid farewell to those he had surrounded himself with in person the week after.
It was not his decision for their partnership to end that way, which dampened what was already a tough season for the team.
I would like to first and foremost thank the mechanics and engineers across all functions at the track, Enstone, and Viry-Châtillon who have raced alongside me these last five seasons. We have shared so much together, and I am proud to call many of you my friends.
I leave… pic.twitter.com/QL7ZTPLQin
— Esteban Ocon (@OconEsteban) December 3, 2024
Looking Ahead to 2025
Alpine managed a respectable sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship. Their 2024 campaign was a season of two halves: one characterised by chaos and underperformance, the other offering hope for the future.
The São Paulo success marks the team’s potential, but without sustained improvement, that potential risks becoming an outlier in an otherwise challenging chapter of their history.
To every BWT Alpine Formula One Team Fan 💙🩷 pic.twitter.com/At3MBNViOR
— BWT Alpine Formula One Team (@AlpineF1Team) December 8, 2024
This means the team faces significant challenges heading into 2025. They must build on their 2024 late-season momentum while addressing operational and strategic weaknesses.
The arrival of new leadership and technical personnel provides a foundation, but only sustained progress can ensure a competitive future for Pierre Gasly and Jack Doohan.
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