{"id":34302,"date":"2025-05-26T03:22:36","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T07:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=34302"},"modified":"2025-05-26T03:22:36","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T07:22:36","slug":"briatore-deems-alpine-are-fundamentally-not-fast-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/05\/26\/briatore-deems-alpine-are-fundamentally-not-fast-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Briatore deems Alpine are &#8220;fundamentally not fast enough&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After poor qualifying sessions for Tsunoda and the Mercedes duo, Monaco was an opportunity for midfield teams to capitalise and score major points. Unfortunately for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/05\/22\/sergio-perez-linked-with-alpine-move\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Alpine<\/a>, they were not in a position to do this.<\/p>\n<p>VCARB capitalised on a strong Saturday and executed a highly aggressive strategy to claim P6 and P8.<\/p>\n<p>Williams used a similar approach to take another double-points finish, whilst Esteban Ocon converted his qualifying into another significant haul for Ayao Komatsu&#8217;s team.<\/p>\n<p>As rivals fought for the top 10, Alpine could only watch from the back of the field.<\/p>\n<p>In what has already been a difficult campaign for the Enstone team, Monte Carlo was another reminder of the journey they face.<\/p>\n<h2>Alpine lose out to rivals in Monaco<\/h2>\n<p>For most of the year, Alpine&#8217;s driver line-up is what has dominated the discourse surrounding the team.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to replace Jack Doohan with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/05\/14\/franco-colapinto-aims-to-get-on-the-pace-quickly-at-alpine\/\" target=\"_self\">Franco Colapinto<\/a> after just six rounds is one of the biggest developments in F1 this year.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"ANVJFjgcQjt5KE5vNaLvEQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2216821994\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'ANVJFjgcQjt5KE5vNaLvEQ',sig:'ZCfGFA4YNZV59q1VZTfakQwtTgyNABqSeO1wktnpaok=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2216821994',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Colapinto&#8217;s incident in his first race back at Imola, for obvious reasons, was under the microscope of media outlets and fans alike.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this focus on the French squad&#8217;s drivers, this has not been the limiting factor for their results in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Alpine only have seven points in the constructors standings, putting them in 9th place &#8211; only one point in front of Sauber.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst the A525 has shown flashes of pace, other midfield outfits have demonstrated better performance and operational efficiency.<\/p>\n<p>With VCARB, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/05\/22\/haas-work-to-rebound-after-disappointing-imola\/\" target=\"_self\">Haas<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/05\/25\/carlos-sainz-unhappy-with-mandatory-two-stop-race-in-monaco\/\" target=\"_self\">Williams<\/a> all scoring points in Monaco, Alpine&#8217;s deficit has only increased.<\/p>\n<p>Assuming that Aston Martin stop missing out on golden opportunities for points, Alpine&#8217;s chances of climbing the field will become even lesser.<\/p>\n<h4>Briatore reflects on Alpine&#8217;s race<\/h4>\n<p>When Briatore was appointed as executive advisor last year, it became clear he would be influential in the team&#8217;s direction.<\/p>\n<p>With Oliver Oakes no longer team principal, the Italian&#8217;s position of authority at Enstone has been further cemented.<\/p>\n<p>It is his responsibility to move the team forward and, based on his own targets, start challenging for Championships in the next few years.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"I1D3ZOPvQCNBfxiYsuVt8g\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2216705576\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'I1D3ZOPvQCNBfxiYsuVt8g',sig:'uCiIgpilKS0Ni-tdtV3vaE1hamEfre9zQLAa3NOEb1Q=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2216705576',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Alpine are obviously far from this objective, though their <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/07\/22\/mercedes-and-alpine-inch-closer-to-engine-agreement\/\" target=\"_self\">switch to Mercedes engines<\/a> for 2026 could offer them a boost.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, when focusing on this season, the new technical directive at the Spanish GP could be their last chance to improve relative to their rivals.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It was always going to be an uphill task given our starting positions,&#8221;\u00a0<\/em>said Briatore.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;With Pierre, we wanted to try something different by pitting early and seeing what opportunities might come to us.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Then he had an incident with Tsunoda and that was the end of Pierre&#8217;s race.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;As we saw, other teams played games with some interesting takes on strategy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Franco did a good job, made no mistakes, had good pace with what he could do in traffic. And I am sure many learnings for him and a boost in confidence.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Fundamentally, we are not fast enough.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We will see in Spain at a more complete track with some intrigue around new wings. We will see how we fare.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo: Peter Fox\/LAT Images (via Alpine media gallery)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After poor qualifying sessions for Tsunoda and the Mercedes duo, Monaco was an opportunity for midfield teams to capitalise and score major points. Unfortunately for Alpine, they were not in a position to do this. VCARB capitalised on a strong Saturday and executed a highly aggressive strategy to claim P6 and P8. Williams used a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":34303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[1567,2452,1844],"class_list":["post-34302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-alpine","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-flavio-briatore"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34304,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34302\/revisions\/34304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}