One F1 team “lost a fiver, found a pound” in Australian GP

Alpine Formula 1 chief Steve Nielsen says the team “lost a fiver, found a pound” after an Australian Grand Prix where it performed below expectations despite a points finish.

The Enstone outfit slumped to last in the constructors’ standings last year, but felt like it came into the 2026 campaign in a much stronger position after pre-season testing.

Alpine’s best qualifier was Pierre Gasly in 14th, though he “drove like a hero” to secure the final point in 10th in the grand prix.

Nielsen says fighting for lower points was the expectation, but felt the car performed weaker than expected to get that result.

“I said to someone earlier that I feel like I’ve lost a fiver and found a pound,” he said in Melbourne.

“So, we came here from Bahrain with expectations to be racing for lower-order points, but more strongly than it turned out that we were.

“We managed to get a point, Pierre drove like a hero, which is great.

“But, some of our competitors have put upgrades on between Bahrain testing and here.

“We haven’t. We need to do something about that. We have performance coming.

“We need to get it on the car because we’re just not quick enough.”

Updates coming, but won’t be ready in time for China

Nielsen says Alpine will have updates in the car to rectify the high-speed understeer it was experiencing in Australia, but those won’t be ready until after the Chinese Grand Prix.

“I think perhaps we could have done a better job in qualifying with tyre prep and stuff on the outlaps, so there’s definitely stuff there we can learn,” he added.

“High-speed balance is definitely not the best, so we need to fix that.

“But yeah, there’s definitely stuff we can do better. If we were starting this race now, we’d definitely do things differently, particularly in qualifying. But everyone will tell you that.”

Asked where the car was losing out in Melbourne, he replied: “It manifests itself as understeer.

“So, we have high-speed understeer. We talked about it before. We saw some of that in Bahrain.

“The nature of this circuit is there’s more high-speed, so that probably comes bigger.

“So, we do understand it. We do have parts coming hopefully that will fix it.

“But they won’t be on the car in China. It’s an injury we are carrying at the moment that I wish we weren’t. But I think we know how to get on top of it.”