The first European round of the season took place on the streets of Monaco, delivering a dramatic weekend of racing

This year’s Monaco Grand Prix was a typically hard-fought affair around the unforgiving Armco barriers lining the Principality, and while the final result was tough to take, there were many aspects of last weekend that as a team we can reflect on with pride. The car performed solidly, and Pierre maintained his 100% streak of scoring points at every event so far this year. Here is a recap of a busy weekend on the streets of Monte Carlo.

Pierre on the pitch

Fresh from celebrating Paris Saint-Germain’s success in the Champions League final, Pierre arrived in Monaco on Wednesday to participate in the annual charity football match held at the Stade Louis II.

Competing alongside fellow drivers Isack Hadjar and Carlos Sainz, Pierre wore the number 10 jersey for the Nazionale Piloti in the Racing Stars Football Cup and, despite losing 6-2 to the Monaco Barbagiuans — with Brazilian legend Ronaldinho leading the opposition’s star-studded line-up — it was great to participate in the game for such a good cause.

Prior to the afternoon’s charity match, Pierre enjoyed a scenic drive and bike ride, taking the elegant electric Alpine A390 along the mountainous roads overlooking the Mediterranean. Franco also had the opportunity to take the sporty A390 around the streets of Monaco before the roads were closed ahead of the start of practice.

Arriving in style

There’s only one way to arrive in Monaco for the race weekend and Pierre and Franco understood the brief exactly last Thursday for media day. The teammates sailed in aboard the beautiful Beneteau Gran Turismo 50 Alpine, mooring up close to the entrance to the paddock. The following morning, they arrived alongside Flavio wearing curated looks from the Alpine Cars Official Collection ahead of the busy Free Practice Friday.

Wearing a bespoke metallic red and white helmet for this weekend, Pierre took to the famous streets on Friday morning for the first hour of familiarisation around the tight confines of Monaco. He finished the opening session in P10, with Franco setting the 15th fastest time.

Following afternoon practice, we completed a total of 132 laps on Friday, equivalent to nearly 450km of running, with the focus on low-fuel and qualifying preparation as well as allowing both drivers to build confidence around the challenging track. They each noted after the two hours how enjoyable the new generation of lighter, smaller cars were around the narrow and twisty course. In FP2, Pierre finished just outside the top-10, while Franco was four places further back after a brush with the barriers on the exit of Saint Devote.

A special lap

With overtaking so difficult at Monaco, much of the focus over the weekend is on the all-important qualifying hour that sets the grid for the race. With less power unit management, and no active aero, the focus in Saturday morning’s session was on fine-tuning the setup for the flying laps in the afternoon.

Another aspect of Monaco to take note of is the high rate of track evolution, with Pierre setting a lap in FP3 around 1.4s quicker than on Friday morning. The track evolution is caused by more rubber from racing tyres being laid down by Formula One and its support series which creates a much grippier surface.

While negotiating yellow and red flags, Pierre continued his strong form to reach Q3 in qualifying, while Franco, missed out on the top-10 by just 0.233s. Pierre delivered a superb 1m13.2s lap in the final part of Q3 to qualify P9 and was still pumped with adrenaline afterwards, saying:

“I am very happy with that result and I don’t think we could have done better today. Once we sneaked into Q3, I just absolutely went for it! I was absolutely buzzing when I crossed the line, filled with so much adrenaline after nailing that final Q3 lap. I was taking a lot of extra risk and grazed the walls everywhere. It's a nice feeling when everything comes together.”

The jewel in the crown

Race day at Monaco is always a special occasion, and for the support race drivers, it was an early alarm call on Sunday morning. The Formula 2 race produced another strong set of results for our Alpine Academy youngsters. In a dramatic Feature race, Alex Dunne secured second place to claim his fourth podium of the year. Meanwhile, in the previous day’s Sprint race, Gabriele Mini took his fourth consecutive podium, meaning he heads to Spain still at the top of the Formula 2 Drivers’ standings.

After the traditional pomp and ceremony on the crowded Monaco starting grid, all eyes were on the start of the race. From P9, Pierre made a brilliant getaway, overtaking Lando Norris on the run up to Beau Rivage on lap one to claim seventh place, following Max Verstappen’s retirement. His opening phase of the race was focused on keeping the McLaren at bay and, after starting on mediums, Pierre had risen to fifth by the time he pitted for new hards on lap 45.

Further back, Franco was circulating in 12th when he stopped ten laps earlier for fresh tyres. When he pitted, Race Control noted that Franco had exceeded the pit lane’s 60km/h speed limit by 0.1km/h. Pierre was recorded at exactly the same speed when he made his stop — and in an unusual set of circumstances, so were another three drivers.

A break from the action

Carrying a five-second time penalty, Pierre was in seventh when the race suddenly took a dramatic turn on lap 60 following an incident for Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin. The Safety Car was deployed and with the recovery taking place at the final corner, Race Control ordered the field to follow the Safety Car through the pit lane, and it was here that Pierre was handed a second pit lane speeding penalty after being recorded at 60.4km/h.

As the race restarted, Charles Leclerc then crashed at Turn 19 and, with part of the asphalt breaking up on the entry to the corner, Race Control decided to red flag the race to perform repairs. After a period spent cleaning the track, the race resumed. Under the stoppage, both our drivers took the opportunity to change tyres, with Pierre resuming on used softs and Franco on a fresh set of softs.

At the standing restart, Pierre began in fifth after being promoted following Leclerc’s retirement and Oscar Piastri serving a penalty. Off the line, he made another brilliant getaway, passing Hadjar around the outside for fourth at Saint Devote. Further back, Franco was edged wide into Turn 1 before being caught out by Sainz’s damaged Williams moving across the track at Portier. After a difficult weekend, Franco came home in P14.

Up ahead, Pierre crossed the finish line in P3 as George Russell served a drive-through penalty. However, the impact of the two five-second penalties dropped him to seventh in the final classification. While it maintained his points-scoring run at every round so far this year, he was heartbroken by the in-race penalties. After the race, we formally requested a Right of Review from the FIA regarding the pit lane speeding penalties.

“I am absolutely heartbroken by the outcome of today’s race,” said Pierre. “I have so many emotions, not only after such a challenging weekend where you are on the limit so often and pushing so much, but also to have a lifelong dream of a Monaco podium taken away from me for reasons which I just cannot comprehend. I know I was under the pit lane speed limit and activated it before the line. We also have margin for these occurrences to not go over, so I just hope they can review it properly and give us back the result all of us at the team deserve. It’s certainly unusual that so many drivers and teams were caught out by it today so something clearly is not right. I know the team has lodged a Right of Review, so hopefully we will seek the right outcome. I will take a few days to relax at home and then switch focus to Barcelona where I will definitely stay motivated for another good result to keep up our points-scoring run.”

There is a quick turnaround now, as we leave the port of Monaco and head to Spain for next weekend’s race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.