A weekend where BWT Alpine Formula One Team paid dearly for every timed lap, before pocketing a double points finish in the race.

Franco Colapinto capped a ten-place recovery to finish ninth at the British Grand Prix, with Pierre Gasly following in tenth, 3.445 seconds off race winner Charles Leclerc.

A result that stood in stark contrast to the rest of the weekend: eleventh and fourteenth in Friday’s sprint qualifying, fifteenth and nineteenth on Sunday’s grid after a penalty for Gasly and a spin for Colapinto in Q1.

Caught between a one-lap pace still out of reach of the Racing Bulls and an Alpine A526 transformed once the fuel tank filled up, Silverstone confirmed the same diagnosis that has followed the team all season — and turned it into good news once again on Sunday.

BWT Alpine Formula One Team – Friday – Free Practice & Sprint Qualifying

Franco Colapinto delivered the standout individual performance of Friday morning. Eleventh in FP1 in 1’30.966, the Argentine ran the whole session on medium tyres without ever trying the softs late on, a choice that makes his time all the more solid against the rest of the field. Pierre Gasly, on the other hand, had a far tougher session: twenty-first in 1’33.019, almost 3.8 seconds off Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari, which set the pace. The car felt unpredictable in his hands, far from the sensations he was chasing through Silverstone’s fast sequences.

Gasly completely turned things around in Sprint Qualifying. Through the first two segments, he set the eleventh-fastest time in 1’29.482, just eight or nine tenths away from reaching sprint Q3 and a grid slot for Saturday’s sprint. The car’s behaviour, which the Frenchman described as “normal” after a difficult morning, allowed him to string together clean laps and rebuild his confidence behind the wheel.

Colapinto, by contrast, couldn’t back up his strong early feeling. Setup changes tried between FP1 and Sprint Qualifying made the A526 harder to drive, with a less stable rear end and slides at the entry to the fast corners. Once through the first segment, he slipped to fourteenth in 1’29.983 and never found the right setup window to get comfortable through the long sweeps of Maggotts, Becketts and Chapel.

No new part was introduced on the A526 at Silverstone. The team remained in a back-to-back configuration with Austria, where an aerodynamic package had been brought to the front of the car. The day’s work therefore focused on analysing the Austrian data and optimising the existing setup, with no extra technical lever to offset the stability deficit seen through the fast sections.

BWT Alpine Formula One Team currently sit fifth in the constructors’ championship, locked in a tight fight with Racing Bulls, Audi, Williams and Haas. Racing Bulls confirmed their status as the benchmark of the midfield this weekend, a marker the Franco-British team will need to beat to score points on a regular basis. Attention now turns to Saturday’s sprint and qualifying, where the changes worked on overnight will be put straight to the test.

Results – Free Practice & Sprint Qualifying

The lap times of both BWT Alpine Formula One Team drivers across Friday’s two sessions at Silverstone.

BWT Alpine Formula One Team – Pierre Gasly penalised, Franco Colapinto eliminated in Q1 at the 2026 British Grand Prix

A day to forget at Silverstone: the sprint confirmed the pace deficit, qualifying made it worse.

Pierre Gasly finished eleventh in the sprint with a best lap of 1’33.880, just ahead of Franco Colapinto in twelfth on 1’33.520. In qualifying, Gasly was eliminated in Q2 in 1’30.063 before picking up a three-place penalty for impeding Lance Stroll, dropping him to fifteenth on the grid. Colapinto, meanwhile, spun at Becketts on his final Q1 attempt, a first this season, and will start nineteenth on Sunday. Two drivers, two different stories, but the same conclusion: pace is badly lacking against the Racing Bulls.

BWT Alpine Formula One Team – Saturday – Sprint & Qualifying

Pierre Gasly produced the best launch of the weekend for BWT Alpine Formula One Team. Starting eleventh on scrubbed medium tyres, he climbed as high as eighth in the opening laps of the sprint before the Racing Bulls, led by Isack Hadjar, closed back into the A526’s mirrors. There was no holding them off: Gasly ultimately lost ground down to eleventh, 40.273 seconds off the winner, with a best lap of 1’33.880.

Franco Colapinto followed a similar path. Starting fourteenth, he also gained several places off the line before gradually slipping back to twelfth in 1’33.520, 41.026 seconds down. The heavier fuel load of the sprint opened a window of competitiveness that qualifying, run with an empty tank, simply doesn’t allow — a pattern that has run through the team’s whole season and reared its head again at Silverstone.

Wind picking up through the afternoon made qualifying trickier for the entire field. Gasly set 1’30.345 in Q1 then 1’30.063 in Q2, a time that left him twelfth and out of Q3. The stewards then hit him with a three-place penalty for impeding Lance Stroll: a radio problem had denied him confirmation that Antonelli wasn’t on a flying lap. BWT Alpine Formula One Team and the FOM confirmed the communication failure, but the stewards judged that Gasly had enough information on his steering wheel display to react. The result: a fifteenth-place start on Sunday instead of twelfth.

Colapinto didn’t even reach Q2. On his final Q1 attempt, he lost the rear of the car through the Maggotts-Becketts complex, spinning and triggering yellow flags — a corner these cars normally take flat out without issue. An unprecedented off for him this season, one that leaves him nineteenth on Sunday’s grid, even though he’d felt his car was better than the day before through the slow and medium-speed corners.

The technical picture matches how both drivers felt it: the A526’s competitiveness swings sharply with fuel load, better in a heavy race trim than in a pure qualifying simulation, a pattern that has repeated itself all season. The gap to reach Q3 grew even wider than in Friday’s sprint qualifying, confirming how hard it is to extract the car’s full potential on a single lap. Starting further back inevitably complicates the mission the following day: Racing Bulls remain out of reach, but Audi, closer by, become the realistic target for points.

No major technical upgrade was brought to the A526 this weekend, with BWT Alpine Formula One Team among the teams that submitted no new part to the FIA at Silverstone. With fifteenth and nineteenth-place starts respectively, Sunday’s race looked tough on paper, but both Gasly and Colapinto were banking on the length of the event and Silverstone’s usual twists and turns to pick up places.

Results – Sprint & Qualifying

The lap times and positions of both BWT Alpine Formula One Team drivers in the sprint and qualifying at Silverstone.

BWT Alpine Formula One Team – Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly seal a double points finish at the 2026 British Grand Prix

Starting nineteenth and fifteenth, both A526s finished in the points at Silverstone.

Franco Colapinto capped a ten-place recovery to finish ninth in 1’34.281 at the best lap, just ahead of Pierre Gasly, tenth in 1’34.179, 3.445 seconds off winner Charles Leclerc. A chaotic race, marked by a late Safety Car following Max Verstappen’s spin at Stowe, allowed BWT Alpine Formula One Team to capitalise on the misfortune of several rivals and leave Silverstone with an unexpected double top 10 given their starting positions.

BWT Alpine Formula One Team – Sunday – Race

The opening lap very nearly turned into an internal incident. Through a left-hand braking zone, Pierre Gasly closed the door on Franco Colapinto, bringing the two A526s dangerously close together. Contact was avoided at the last moment and both cars carried on without damage, the episode having no sporting consequences.

Colapinto produced the standout recovery drive of the field. Starting nineteenth on new mediums, he gained four or five places on the opening lap alone despite a half-spin negotiated at Club, before passing Nico Hülkenberg on lap two. Carlos Sainz and then Esteban Ocon fell in quick succession, and the Argentine was already up to eleventh by around lap 15. Two stops, on laps 22 and 47 respectively, on new hards then new softs, let him hold that pace all the way to the chequered flag and cross the line ninth, with a best lap of 1’34.281.

Gasly had a more frustrating time of it. Starting fifteenth after his qualifying penalty, he made progress through the first stint before a noticeably slow pit stop, on laps 23 and 48 on hards then softs, cost him track position. He crossed the line tenth in 1’34.179 at the best lap, 3.445 seconds behind Leclerc, just behind his teammate. That point also marked the 500th of his Formula 1 career.

The race itself threw up plenty of drama: a Virtual Safety Car on lap 22 for an umbrella on track, Hülkenberg’s retirement, trouble for Antonelli and, finally, Verstappen’s spin at Stowe, which froze the order behind the Safety Car through to the flag. Charles Leclerc took his first win of the 2026 season, ahead of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. That widespread chaos worked directly in BWT Alpine Formula One Team’s favour, with their race pace, well ahead of what they’d shown in qualifying, proving decisive through the long, heavy-fuel stints.

This double result consolidates BWT Alpine Formula One Team’s fifth place in the constructors’ championship, with roughly sixty points on the board. The gap to Racing Bulls, though, remains wider on track than in the standings, with the Milton Keynes team having dominated the last two rounds.

No major technical upgrade was brought to Silverstone, the A526 running the same package as in Austria, but the team made better use in the race of the car’s aerodynamic stability at low and medium speed, a sharp contrast with its unpredictable behaviour on a single lap in qualifying.

They said it

Pierre Gasly – 10th

On one hand, we have to be satisfied to have taken points for the team, especially given where we started. What matters most is the team’s tally. Today we managed to take advantage of the difficulties other people ran into, even though our rivals benefited from that too, hence some disappointment with the final result.

For my part, we had problems that built up over the course of the weekend. On Saturday, a radio issue led to a grid penalty because I got in the way of another driver. This Sunday, a system failure during a pit stop cost us a lot of time, which compromised our track position. In the end, we simply tried to limit the damage and this point is our reward. I know it’s my 500th point in Formula 1, a nice personal milestone, but we now need to focus on quickly improving the car so we can score points more regularly.

Franco Colapinto – 9th

We finally have something to smile about after a difficult weekend for the team. Starting from nineteenth, we knew it would be hard to go and get points. Luck was on our side with several rivals dropping out of contention, but we managed to stay in the game to take advantage of it. This ten-place recovery was probably beyond our expectations, so I’m delighted.

It’s nice to get both cars into the points with Pierre for the team’s home Grand Prix. We had a good start and had some great wheel-to-wheel battles on the first lap. Our first stint on the medium tyres was very solid and we were able to overtake several drivers on track, which shows we had better pace today. It’s a shame the race didn’t restart at the end, because I would have liked to try something against Gabi [Bortoleto]. It was a great recovery, but the Racing Bulls have been stronger than us these last two weekends. So we need to keep developing the car for the coming races.

Flavio Briatore – Executive Director

Scoring points with both cars at our home race is a good result given our starting positions and the level of performance we showed this weekend. We know we need to keep progressing and redouble our efforts to bring new parts to the car.

That’s all the more true because we need to fight and compete more consistently with the Racing Bulls, who have been strong over the last two rounds. We know the fight is very close in the standings, but the gap is bigger out on track. The team is working flat out at Enstone and we all need to pull in the same direction to get back to our level and retake the lead of the midfield pack.

Results – Race

The finishing positions of both BWT Alpine Formula One Team drivers at the British Grand Prix.

Source: BWT Alpine Formula One Team / FIA – Official results of the 2026 British Grand Prix