Alpine & Colapinto’s Double Retirement: ‘Didn’t Go as We Expected'

Alpine faces a week of reflection after a Singapore Grand Prix to forget. The French team saw Franco Colapinto forced to retire in both the Sprint race and the main race, a double blow that left the Argentine with no chance to score points and has set off alarms in the Enstone structure. Steve Nielsen, the team's sporting director, confirmed they will thoroughly investigate the causes of both problems, especially since reliability had been one of the team's strengths throughout the 2026 season.

Colapinto's Calvary began on Saturday, when his Alpine stopped at turn 14 during the Sprint because of an energy storage system issue; on Sunday, the story repeated itself: the Argentine retired on lap 31 after reporting on the radio that something had broken. The team suspects a failure in the transmission system, although it must still complete the investigations to confirm it: "Today's race in Singapore and the triple header as a whole did not go as we expected; the result speaks for itself, and unfortunately, we did not manage to score any points, which naturally makes our task in the championship more difficult," Nielsen acknowledged.

The impact on the standings is significant: Alpine has scored no points in its third consecutive Grand Prix and has seen Racing Bulls widen its advantage to 32 points in the fight for fifth place in the constructors' championship; before the Baku, Malaysia, and Singapore races, the gap was barely nine points. Now the French team finds itself in a complicated position with fewer races ahead to reverse the situation.

Despite the adverse outlook, Nielsen highlighted reasons for optimism at Alpine. The team plans to incorporate new pieces to improve the performance of its cars, complementing the update it introduced after the summer holidays: "Not only do we have to keep improving the car's performance for both drivers, something we will do with more pieces that are on the way, but we must also understand what caused us to have to stop twice on track this weekend," the sporting director explained.

Nielsen also stressed the importance of restoring the reliability that characterized Alpine for much of the season: "Reliability has been one of our strengths this season, and it is important that we get it back under control to ensure we have two cars in the fight and competing for points," he said. The British team knows that without that solidity, the options to score points are drastically reduced, especially on a grid as competitive as the current one.

Alpine now faces two key objectives: identify the causes of Colapinto's retirement and keep improving the A526's performance. The next event in Austin, October 23 to 25, will be a new opportunity to reverse the situation and show the team is still in the fight.

The season enters its final stretch, and every point counts. Alpine cannot afford more mistakes if it wants to keep its Constructors' Championship aspirations alive.