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Argentine rising star Franco Colapinto has laid down a stern marker for his new team, Alpine, stating that the era of excuses is officially over. Following the team's disastrous 2025 campaign, where they finished last in the constructors' championship, Alpine has undergone a radical transformation. With a switch to Mercedes power units and a completely new car philosophy, Colapinto believes the team now has everything it needs to perform.
A Reset with Mercedes Power
The decision to abandon the Renault works engine program was a painful one for the French manufacturer, but it has removed the primary albatross from around the team's neck. Colapinto emphasized that with the regulations changing and the engine now being a known quantity from Mercedes, the focus must shift purely to execution. "We just have to do the job and show performance," he stated flatly. The strategic shift to focus entirely on 2026 last year must now pay dividends.
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Colapinto, who joined Alpine after a stint with Williams, feels he has matured significantly as a driver and is ready to lead the team's charge. He acknowledges the hard work the team has put in over the winter and is hopeful that the A526 will be the fast car they deserve. The pressure is now squarely on the chassis department in Enstone to prove that their previous struggles were indeed engine-related and not a fundamental flaw in their design capabilities.
Missing the Shakedown
One immediate setback for Colapinto is that his former team, Williams, is absent from the Barcelona shakedown. He noted that missing these early testing days puts a team on the back foot, as they will spend the official test in Bahrain just trying to get the car running rather than optimizing performance. Alpine, however, is present and racking up miles, giving Colapinto the valuable seat time he needs to integrate with his new mechanics and engineers.
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