The final two races of the European season began with a trip to the seaside resort of Zandvoort last weekend.

As the scene of Pierre’s first podium with BWT Alpine Formula One Team back in 2023 - and with the added threat of wet weather this time around - it promised plenty of unpredictability and potential opportunity to take home some points. And when the race did throw up drama, the team was well in contention right until the very end with Franco just 0.448secs away from a World Championship point.

To Zandvoort, via Haarlem

After catching back up on summer break stories and completing the usual media and marketing duties, away from the track, both Pierre and Franco paid a visit to the historic town of Haarlem, nestled between Zandvoort and the Dutch capital, Amsterdam. There, they dropped into the Oakberry store to sample the brand’s range of organic açaí bowls and smoothies before diving into practice the following day.

Before jumping back in the A525, Pierre also revealed a fresh helmet design for the weekend. The vibrant livery is part of a new collaboration with Years of Culture, reflecting their joint mission to unite art and sport while fostering dialogue and cultural exchange on a global stage.

Speaking of stages, a big shoutout to the wildly passionate and enthusiastic Dutch fans who make Zandvoort such an energetic race. There was plenty of support for Pierre and Franco in the sea of orange - and the crowd was especially excited to cheer for home hero Nina Gademan, who was returning to her F1 ACADEMY seat last weekend.

The perfect birthday present

Twelve months ago, Nina made history as the first Wild Card entry to score points in F1 ACADEMY. And despite hailing from Wijster in the east of the Netherlands, she knows the tricky 2.64-mile Zandvoort layout well.

Nina turned 22 on Saturday - and her best qualifying time earned her pole for F1 ACADEMY’s reverse-grid race, the first outing for the series since Montréal. Last time out, she scored her first podium, so she was aiming to keep that momentum going at her home race.

She didn’t disappoint. Nina led away from pole in her pink, BWT-liveried machine and brilliantly held on to lead every lap, claiming her maiden F1 ACADEMY win. There wasn’t a dry eye on the podium as the Dutch national anthem rang out across the dunes to celebrate her success. With a P6 in Sunday’s race, it was a strong weekend for the Alpine Academy racer.

All eyes on qualifying

Despite several stoppages with red flags, both Pierre and Franco managed to rack up a solid number of laps over Friday’s two sessions - 111 in total - and were happy with the baseline set-up on both soft tyre runs and high fuel, while the team fine-tuned the balance heading into qualifying.

After struggling on Saturday morning, both drivers made improvements when it came down to business. Franco was hampered by traffic in Qualifying and felt Q2 was possible. Pierre progressed but was on the wrong end of 0.150secs and ended up P14, underlining the fine margins in modern Formula One.

Race day drama

With rain in the air for race day, there was potential to take advantage of an incident-packed Grand Prix - and it nearly worked in our favour. But before heading to the grid, we had a visit from Argentinian football star Paulo Dybala, who caught up with Franco and Flavio before lights out.

Pierre started on mediums and pitted for hards on lap 23 - timely, just as the first Safety Car was deployed. When the second Safety Car came 30 laps later, we made the call to keep him out to gain track position. That strategy lifted him from 13th to 8th, but the cars behind, armed with fresher tyres, quickly made inroads and the gamble didn’t pay off.

Franco started on softs and made three stops: first for mediums on lap 19, then twice under the Safety Cars in an attempt to capitalise on fresher rubber. The strategy almost worked - he crossed the line less than half a second away from the points after a hard charge on Softs at the end.

At the chequered flag, Pierre finished P17 and Franco P11. But there’s no time to dwell. We’re heading south across the Alps to Monza for the final race of the European season - the scene of Pierre’s maiden F1 victory and where Franco made his debut 12 months ago. Monza, here we come…