Qatar Grand Prix: Preview – Alpine

BWT Alpine Formula One Team returns to the Middle East for the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix, the penultimate round of the FIA Formula One World Championship and the sixth and final Sprint weekend of the season.

The high-speed Lusail International Circuit flows through the desert on the outskirts of Doha, Qatar’s capital city. The track, which was originally designed for motorcycle racing, is almost entirely made up of medium and high-speed corners with a one-kilometre start-finish straight, providing the best opportunity for overtaking into Turn 1. The track presents a number of challenges for the team, not least with Pirelli limiting the number of laps per tyre set to 25 such is the strain on all compounds through the number of high-speed corners on the 5.419km circuit.

Pierre Gasly: “We left Las Vegas with mixed emotions because, whilst our pace was good in the dry and wet conditions, we weren’t able to capitalise on this in the race through no fault of our own. We sustained a large amount of damage to the rear of the car after the incident at Turn 1, which pretty much took us out of the fight straight away. It is encouraging, however, that we were in the mix again during Qualifying and were able to start in the top-10 once again. We head now immediately to Qatar for another night race, but one with very different – much warmer – conditions. The unique Lusail International Circuit is almost entirely made up of high-speed corners and will be very interesting to take on with our package, which I am hopeful can suit us. It’s the final Sprint weekend of the season so we need to be on it from the get-go with only one practice session. I know the whole team is ready for the challenge with only two rounds left of the year and everyone is motivated to collect some more points.”

Franco Colapinto: “The weekend in Las Vegas was challenging on my side of the garage. The conditions were interesting the whole weekend with the cool temperatures and rain during some of the sessions. It made driving very challenging, especially Qualifying where we were able to make it through to Q2 in the rain where there was such little grip. My race on Saturday was compromised when we suffered damage to the rear of the car during the chaos at Turn 1 and it was hard to recover from there. There was still plenty to learn from the Las Vegas race and we will debrief ahead of Qatar to reflect on how we can make the most of the final two rounds. The different conditions in Qatar will play a significant part over the weekend, especially as the track is also high speed in nature. It is also the final Sprint event of the season so it is important we can have a good first practice and be on it straight away. We are ready to give it our all and to go racing at the penultimate round of the season.”