Gasly bets on Alpine’s 2026 reboot: “Something big is coming”
Pierre Gasly isn’t one for grandstanding, but he isn’t hiding his optimism either. After two bruising seasons with Alpine and a third that’s felt like treading water, the Frenchman says the team’s 2026 reset is the one he’s been waiting for.
“We know we’re clearly not at the level we want to be at,” Gasly said in a recent interview. “But we also know something big is coming for the coming season.”
He’s talking about the double punch of F1’s sweeping 2026 regulations and a very un-Enstone turn: Mercedes power in the back of the Alpine. For the first time in 49 years, the team is handing its engine program to an external supplier. Call it pragmatism. Call it a bet. Internally, they’re banking on it being the springboard the project’s been missing.
The team’s 2025 campaign has already been geared around that pivot. Development resources have largely skewed toward next year’s A526, the first Alpine built around the new rules and that new power unit. If it’s felt like Alpine’s been operating in the shadows this season, there’s a reason.
“We’re on a big low, but we’re hoping to bounce back to get as high as possible for 2026,” Gasly said. “I really believe in ourselves as a team, and I want to be the one to put us back on top.”
Since Gasly arrived in 2023, the graph has bent the wrong way. What began as a punchy midfield outfit with occasional podium potential hardened into a slog—thin weekends, too many Saturdays spent out in Q1, and Sundays spent clinging to the edges of the points. That takes a toll, and Gasly hasn’t sugar-coated how heavy the lift has been from inside the garage.
“It’s quite tough, because I’ve got to keep the team up and I’ve got to keep the spirit up,” he admitted. “I need to make sure that the 100 guys that work at the track and also the 1,500 people that are back at the factory are all motivated and know that we are in a position to fight for the front of the grid.”
That kind of leadership isn’t glamorous. It’s the debriefs after another difficult race, the factory visits when the calendar says he could be resting, the constant messaging that there’s a plan and everyone has a part in it. And as the results dipped, the noise outside grew louder.
“I think what was more difficult for me was to see the people I care about, that made huge sacrifices to get me to where I am today, being affected by this negativity that I was surrounded with,” Gasly said. “At the end of the day, that’s just the life of an athlete and stuff I have to accept, but I was more bothered that it would affect my parents and my brothers, which wasn’t fair.”
This is, after all, a driver entering his 10th season in Formula 1 and his fourth with Alpine. Gasly’s career has always carried a sense of unfinished business—a Grand Prix winner, yes, but still a competitor who believes there’s more ceiling left to smash if the machinery will let him. If Alpine gets the 2026 regulations right, if the Mercedes power unit integrates cleanly, if the reset resets the right things, then he has reason to expect more than hand-waving about “process.”
From Enstone’s point of view, 2026 is bigger than a technical update. It’s a philosophical course correction after a choppy stretch. The organization has done its share of introspection—restructuring, retooling, and now re-powering. Those moves either look brave or reckless depending on what the stopwatch says in March next year.
The honest truth? No one knows yet. The new rules will redraw the competitive map, and some teams will inevitably misread it. Alpine’s wager is that a clean-sheet approach plus a proven power unit gives them the shortest path back toward the sun. The last time Enstone nailed a regulation swing, it went on to win titles. The scale is different now, the competition sharper, but the ambition hasn’t changed.
Gasly’s words aren’t just optimism; they’re a stake in the ground. He wants to be at the front of the rebound, not just a beneficiary of it. And after a season spent sacrificing short-term shine for long-term gain, 2026 can’t arrive fast enough at Enstone.
“Something big is coming,” he said. We’ll find out soon enough if it’s the tide turning—or just another wave to ride out.
