Alpine are guaranteed to finish last in 2025 – but will set an obscure points record

Alpine will go into the final round of the season this weekend knowing they cannot avoid finishing last in the world championship.

The team failed to score for the 17th time last weekend, leaving them rooted to the bottom of the standings on 22 points. Even if Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto scored a shock one-two at Yas Marina while the Sauber drivers failed to score, it would not be enough to lift them out of last place.

However Alpine is guaranteed to have the highest points score ever achieved by the last-placed team in F1. The previous high was set by Haas when they scored 12 points but finished last in 2023.

This is Alpine’s worst championship result since its owner Renault returned to F1 as a full constructor in 2016. It finished ninth that year, which was F1’s most recent season to feature 11 teams, but rose to fourth in the standings in just two years. It repeated that result in 2022, after it rebranded as Alpine, then took sixth over the next two years.

The team’s sixth-place finish last season was largely due to an outstanding result at the Brazilian Grand Prix, prior to which neither of their cars had finished higher than ninth place. Esteban Ocon and Gasly finished second and third respectively, lifting the team from ninth in the standings.

Alpine went into the 2025 season intending to prioritise their development work for next year. Formula 1 will introduce sweeping new technical regulations in 2026 and Alpine will switch to using Mercedes power units, having cancelled its in-house engine project. The team shared pictures of the final engine prepared at its Viry-Chatillon base prior to this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Gasly admitted early in the year Alpine were unlikely to avoid finishing last in the championship. He has scored all of the team’s points; Franco Colapinto has managed a best finish of 11th since replacing Jack Doohan at the seventh round of the season.

Alpine are one of three teams confirmed in their finishing positions for 2025: McLaren are champions, last year’s runners-up Ferrari are certain to finish fourth and Williams secured fifth place last weekend.

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