Alpine will not be able to fix the problem with A526 by Shanghai.

      As a result of the first stage of the season in Melbourne, only Pierre Gasly from the Alpine drivers made it to the top ten, and he only managed to earn one point for 10th place thanks to the retirement of two faster cars. Oscar Piastri crashed his MCL40 before the start, and Isaac Hajar from Red Bull faced technical issues.

      Throughout the Australian weekend, the Alpine team struggled with difficulties related to the unstable behavior of the A526 car at high speeds – this was partly why Gasly and Franco Colapinto were eliminated in the second part of qualifying on Saturday and could not advance to the final.

      Starting in 2026, Alpine will use Mercedes power units, and the team understands that the results do not yet reflect the potential of the new generation technology. The reasons for the chassis balance issues have not yet been identified, but the fact that drivers are complaining about severe understeer may indicate that the front wing is not working effectively.

      Steve Nielsen, managing director of Alpine F1, acknowledged that the problem emerged during preseason testing, and work is already underway to address it.

      “At high speeds, understeer begins to manifest,” he was quoted by The Race. “We saw this during testing in Bahrain. But the characteristics of the track in Albert Park mean that the speeds are higher there, so the problem has worsened.

      We understand what it is related to. In some time, we will receive new components, and I hope this will allow us to eliminate it. However, these updates will not be on our car in China yet. Overall, our car is currently suffering from this kind of 'injury,' which I would like to avoid. But I think we know how to fix the situation.”