The annual trip to the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve was a significant one for us, as we celebrated the 100th start for the BWT Alpine Formula One Team name in the World Championship - dating back to the beginning of the 2021 season.

And while our landmark race wasn’t successful on track, there was plenty going on across a busy weekend in Montréal.

For starters, two lucky winners attended the Canadian Grand Prix with us, enjoying a VIP experience after entering a competition on our fan platform RISE+, and we had more Alpine fans enjoying the action in a grandstand specially hosted by Team Partner viagogo.

Getting in the groove

The weekend in Quebec began with both Pierre and Franco running on the C5 and softest C6 tyre compounds across the two practice sessions on Friday, completing a total of 546km. Both cars were running with the name of AtkinsRéalis on their halo - as the world-class engineering company was announced as a new Team Partner the day before.

In practice, Franco was much happier on longer fuel runs rather than the qualifying sims, and suffered a couple of spins getting up to speed on the tricky 4.4km track. But he was much more content with the setup the following day and set the 12th-fastest time in qualifying - despite apologising to the team for touching the wall on his final lap, thankfully without incurring any damage.

Supported this past weekend in the garage by his mother Pascale, Pierre was unfortunate in qualifying to be caught out by a late red flag. He clearly had the pace to progress to Q2, but his final run on the soft tyre was scuppered as the rubber wasn’t in the correct temperature window, and with the A525 sliding across the road too much, he failed to progress.

Overnight, the decision was taken to take the car out of parc fermé conditions and make some changes to the power unit - as a result, Pierre started the Canadian Grand Prix from the pit lane. In contrast, Franco was elevated on the starting grid to tenth place following grid penalties for others.

Away from the action in Montréal, there was time on Saturday evening to check on the progress of our sister team at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and also to celebrate a podium finish for Alpine Academy racer Nina Gademan in the supporting F1 ACADEMY race.

Opening lap action

At the start of the Grand Prix, Franco enjoyed a brilliant opening lap, passing Alex Albon around the outside of Turn 4. He then defended from the Williams entering the Turn 8/9 chicane, but Albon ran wide over the grass and came back onto the circuit in front of Franco. In taking avoiding action, he unfortunately lost a place to Nico Hülkenberg’s Sauber.

Franco started the race on the mediums and pitted on lap 14 for hards, which he ran to the end. Alternatively, Pierre opted to start on hards and made his one and only stop on lap 53 for the medium compound Pirelli. Drama came on lap 45, when he was battling for 17th place with Lance Stroll. The Aston Martin was defending his position approaching Turn 13 when he - in the opinion of the FIA stewards - “changed direction to the left without leaving a car’s width of space”, which forced Pierre to run wide onto the grass. At the flag, Franco finished P13, two places ahead of Pierre.

Following the racing action, there’s one more important task for Pierre and Franco before they return to Enstone. Both drivers are on their way to New York City to take the red carpet at the world premiere of F1: The Movie. Enjoy the film gentleman.