How Alpine won the war to be F1's best of the rest in 2022

Instead of taking steps towards the top three, old rivals McLaren and Alpine lost ground as F1’s new ground-effect era began. Frustrations boiled at both teams, particularly as Alpine lost its prized protege Oscar Piastri to the papaya squad, but it was the Enstone-based team that came out on top in the fight for fourth

Fernando Alonso shouted loudest, so it was he who was heard. The two-time champion is no stranger to a soundbite and knows exactly how to stir the pot. In 2022, that came in the form of calling out Alpine for its unreliability.

His best embellishment arrived following an electrical gremlin that prevented him from contesting July’s sprint race in Austria. At the start of his TV media pen duties, he reckoned already that the fragility had cost him 50 points. When he was speaking to the written press a few minutes later, that had climbed as high as 70. A similar figure was offered after he retired in Singapore with a Renault power unit failure.

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Author Matt Kew

Matt Kew is Autosport’s F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 following stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better-suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham’s banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing are undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.