Alpine

**Alpine Racing Team** was a French team operated by Renault that competed in Formula International. Created in 2021 after Renault bought the remnants of the withdrawing Mahindra team, Alpine became the feeder team of Renault's Formula Earth team. They made a strong start in the midfield but would later fall into the backmarker group due to them conserving money while planning on their rise on the grid. From 2029 onwards, the team started to establish themselves as the best of the rest, including getting marquee signings such as Edvin Beqiri, Onni Korhonen and most notably 5-time Champion Nicholas Latifi. However, the mismanagement from the team during those seasons of success saw Alpine in the back of the grid in 2032 and with mounting debts. As a result of this, Renault decided to shut down the team and sell the remnants to avoid the financial losses. After a major bidding war, Toyota bought the assets and created the Lexus team.

## Origins

In 2020, Mahindra announced that they would leave the sport due to their decline and financial losses during the years. Renault, who were interested in creating a feeder team, bought the remnants and created the Alpine team, named after the historic sports car company that they are major stakeholders of, and putting the Alpine name for the first time in single seaters.

## 2021-2033: Quickly established in the midfield

For their debut season, Alpine signed Antoine Robespierre and Simone Cimorelli. Robespierre proved to be competitive from the beginning and finished 15th, which was very respectable for a newcomer team. However, Cimorelli, who had struggled with Nio last season, finished last with 2 points and exited the team via contract termination. Lucas Lovis moved from the stricken Porsche. 2032 was a bigger success with Robespierre scoring Alpine's first ever podium and finishing 11th, while Lovis finished 14th, thus putting Alpine in 6th place in their second ever season.

2023 saw a disaster in the start of the year, as Robespierre suffered a horror injury in the fourth race and missed the entirety of the following races. Test driver and exciting prospect Josep Esperanca was signed up and impressed, finishing 12th despite not being a full-time driver and scoring 40 points. Lovis finished 15th and scored the team's only podium, but shocked everyone in the end of the season when he announced his premature retirement, citing that he fell out of love with the sport.

## 2024-2027: In the back of the grid

Esperanca was signed on a full-time basis to replace Robespierre and Brigitte Bouvier came in. The team had fell in the back of the grid as they wanted to save money after their high-spending period. Esperanca finished with 11 points and Bouvier with 8. The latter was ousted and replaced with Andretti prospect Higinio Azkuenaga. 2025 was a worse year, as the talented duo was hampered by the poor car and scored a total of 5 points. 2026 was an even worse season, with Esperanca scoring what was the team's only point. 2027 was the last year of their setback, with the duo signing 2 points each.

## 2028-2031: Resurgence and arrival of big names

2028 started with a disaster as Azkuenaga suffered a horror crash that ended up with him suffering a spinal cord injury and ending his career very prematurely. Test driver Glen Smith would race for the rest of the season. Esperanca, who carried the team by himself, had a breakout season as he finished 8th despite not scoring a podium and stunned everyone with his talent. Smith showed flashes of promise but only scored 6 points.

For 2029, Alpine made a very big transfer by signing Nicholas Latifi, the most succesful driver of FI who had left Racing Point. Latifi showed his quality despite having an average car and finished 10th, scoring the team's only podium which was the first since 2023 for Alpine. Esperanca, however, struggled to replicate the success of the previous year. With Latifi retiring, Edvin Beqiri moved from Tesla Dragon on a free transfer. Beqiri also finished 10th and scored the team's only podium while Esperanca improved from last season. Beqiri moved to Campos Repsol after this season. The team signed another ex-FE driver, Onni Korhonen. 2031 was the best season of the team, with both cars finishing in the top 10. Esperanca finally scored his first podium and added one more alter in the season, while Korhonen also scored 2 podiums and finished 10th behind Esperanca.

## 2032: Financial implosion and sale

Despite coming from a very succesful year, Alpine had majorly mismanaged their finances, having spent highly on wages for their marquee signings, with Latifi allegedly having the highest wage in the FI grid. As a result of this, Alpine were now in dire straits financially, having pretty much imploded during the 2031 off-season and were on the brink of bankruptcy, which concerned owners Renault. Still, the team made it to the 2032 grid with Esperanca remaining and Australian starlet Aidan McKay. With funds drying up, the team finished last with McKay and Esperanca finishing with 2 points each. In the end of the year, Renault announced that they would shut down the team and sell it to the highest bidder in order to make up for the financial losses. In what was a major bid with 3 main contenders to buy the remnants, the winners were Toyota, who wanted to return to single seaters for the first time since 2009 and created the Lexus team which debuted in 2033. The team had seen some moderate success, scoring a few podiums. However, their existence was short-lived as Toyota moved to FE in 2036 and alongside them all major staff. Lexus raced for a last time in 2036 and Toyota put the team on sale. The winners of the new bidding war were Italian aviation giants Romagnoli Aviazione, who founded their eponymous team and finished third on their debut season.

## Notable Drivers

* Antoine Robespierre (2021-2023)
* Simone Cimorelli (2021)
* Lucas Lovis (2022-2023)
* Josep Esperanca (2023-2032)
* Brigitte Bouvier (2024)
* Higinio Azkuenaga (2025-2028)
* Glen Smith (2028)
* Nicholas Latifi (2029)
* Edvin Beqiri (2030)
* Onni Korhonen (2031)
* Aidan McKay (2032)