Alpine scored no points at Sepang and lost ground to its rival in the fight for fifth in the constructors’ standings. Executive adviser Flavio Briatore acknowledged that starting on slick tyres on a wet track proved to be the wrong call.
After heavy rain and a delayed start, teams split over their tyre choice. Alpine fitted soft slicks to Pierre Gasly’s and Franco Colapinto’s cars, while 13 of the 22 drivers chose intermediates and occupied the top 13 places in the early laps. Colapinto started from the penultimate row after penalties, Gasly started ninth.
Colapinto recovered to 13th, while Gasly finished 16th. Neither scored points. Briatore said the team had performed well through the weekend until the race but failed to make the right decisions and did not do a good enough job as a team. He said Alpine and some other teams had tried a different tyre strategy but could not recover.
Racing Bulls, Alpine’s main rival for fifth, scored with both cars: Liam Lawson finished seventh and Arvid Lindblad, who started last, took tenth. After the race, Racing Bulls had 90 points to Alpine’s 68. The source also reports that the FIA acknowledged a software problem that contributed to the start delay.