Alpine managed to get both cars into SQ3 at Miami, but Pierre Gasly was in no mood to celebrate. The Frenchman finished 10th after a car that suddenly became awkward to drive, and he admitted the team is still trying to make sense of the problem.
A rare Alpine result, but not one to get carried away by
In Formula 1, encouraging signs can vanish as quickly as they appear. At Miami, Alpine put both of its cars through to SQ3 on Friday, something it had not done since the Austrian Grand Prix sprint in 2024. On paper, that is a proper step forward. In practice, it also underlined just how inconsistent the team can still be, with flashes of competitiveness but not yet complete confidence in the car.
Results like this matter because they tell you where a team really is. Reaching the final part of sprint qualifying proves there is pace in the package, at least over one lap and under the right conditions. But for Alpine, the picture remains mixed. The result is there; the certainty is not.
Gasly ends up in the top 10, but without much faith in the car
Pierre Gasly finished the session 10th, which on the face of it is a respectable return in such a tight field. The problem is that his account of the run did not match the timing sheet. His feedback was far more downbeat than his position suggests.
The Frenchman said the car had become noticeably harder to drive than usual. In a sprint weekend, where there is precious little time to respond to a problem, that sort of issue bites immediately. If the rear end is slipping when the throttle goes down, the loss is felt everywhere: on corner exit, in confidence, and ultimately on the lap time.
The real issue appears to be traction
Gasly was unusually frank about the problem. “Since this morning, we have had a problem with the car that we cannot understand,” he told Canal+. That one word — understand — is doing a lot of work here. In F1, a car can be too nervous, too lazy or too understeery. But when a driver is talking about a lack of traction without an obvious explanation, it becomes more than a simple set-up misstep.
The Frenchman made clear that he was unable to get back on the throttle as he wanted, with much more wheelspin than usual. Over a single lap, that changes everything. The car becomes less usable, the driver has to work around the limitation, and the lap time slips away even if the underlying pace is not entirely absent.
Gasly also said there are reasons behind the behaviour, but the team has not yet had enough time to pin them down. That is often where Formula 1 is at its most unforgiving: an upgrade meant to improve the car can shift the balance somewhere else. If the team cannot immediately work out where, the driver is left to improvise.
Alpine’s latest update may have upset the balance
Like several teams, Alpine brought updates to Miami. One of them was a new rear wing fitted only to Gasly’s car. That is the interesting part of the story, because the French car was not simply quicker or slower — it was behaving differently for one driver only.
That is rarely a small matter. In F1, an aerodynamic change can alter how load is transferred through the car, which in turn affects traction. If the driver loses confidence on corner exit, the rest of the lap soon follows suit. The issue is not just about generating downforce; the car also has to remain predictable when the throttle is applied.
For Alpine, the awkward bit is the comparison within the garage. Gasly said he is driving differently from his team-mate, with something normally better on his side of the car, yet the result is not following. When an update creates more questions than answers, it stops looking like progress and starts looking like a puzzle.
Colapinto makes the most of the opportunity, but the limits remain
On the other side of the garage, Franco Colapinto qualified eighth. It was his fourth top-10 qualifying result in Formula 1, which gives the performance some proper substance. The Argentine therefore beat his team-mate and sounded more upbeat about Alpine’s direction.
Even so, his day was not straightforward. He was learning the Miami circuit and had already described the session as difficult. But where Gasly felt the car had become hard to understand, Colapinto said the team had eventually turned things around and got to the bottom of the early lack of performance. Two different readings from the same garage usually mean the car is still not fully settled.
He also felt the weekend was relatively favourable for Alpine, given the circuit’s emphasis on low-speed corners. That is worth noting, because it suggests the result may say as much about the track layout as it does about the car’s true strengths. Miami may suit the package better, without quite erasing the question marks Gasly raised.
For Alpine, Miami is more test session than triumph
In the end, Alpine leaves the day with a mixed verdict. Two cars in SQ3, Gasly in the top 10 and Colapinto in eighth: that is a decent headline. But the more important story is that the team still has work to do to understand why an update appears to have unsettled the car for its most experienced driver.
In Formula 1, that sort of uncertainty tends to decide the tone of a weekend. A car that is quick but difficult to trust can rescue one session, but rarely the whole picture. If Alpine wants to build on this, it needs to turn the confusion into clarity. Otherwise, Miami will be remembered as a useful result with just enough doubt attached to stop anyone from getting too comfortable.
Key takeaways from Alpine’s Miami day
- Alpine got both cars into SQ3 for the first time since the Austrian Grand Prix sprint in 2024.
- Pierre Gasly finished 10th, but was unhappy with the feel of the car.
- The Frenchman reported a traction issue and excessive wheelspin that the team has not yet explained.
- A new update, including a rear wing only on Gasly’s car, may have changed the balance.
- Franco Colapinto took eighth place and sounded more positive about Alpine’s potential.
- The Miami sprint weekend looks encouraging, but it also shows Alpine still has questions to answer.
