Qualifying for race four at Silverstone saw Nicolas Longuet continue his strong one-lap pace, with the Frenchman storming to second place on the grid. His teammate Fabrizio Donoso also made Q3 and slotted into ninth position. The race didn’t quite go to plan for Fabrizio, after he damaged his car during lap one of the 18-lap race and dropped down the order. Nicolas fought hard and despite losing some ground, he brought his car home in fourth to secure valuable points for the team.

Race five at the temple of speed saw the pair make Q3 once again, with Fabrizio this time inside the top three in third and Nicolas down in ninth. A chaotic race ensued, but with a strong strategy in place, both drivers found themselves fighting for third and fourth positions towards the end of the race. However, Nicolas was cruelly denied a points scoring finish after an incident with both Mercedes cars demoted him down to twelfth. Meanwhile, Fabrizio benefited from some further incidents around him and ended his race in fourth position.

For the final race at Spa-Francorchamps, Patrik Sipos took Fabrizio’s seat to partner Nicolas. The team looked set for another double Q3 appearance, before a game glitch ruled Patrik’s lap time out and left him thirteenth. Nicolas secured third after disputes with the game stewards who had initially invalidated his lap time. In classic Spa fashion, the start of the race was wet providing the team with quite a challenge. On a gradually drying circuit and different strategies, Nicolas brought his car home in fifth, while Patrik ended his race seventeenth after the team took some gambles on the variable track conditions.

Alpine Esports is now settled into fourth position in the championship at the halfway point of the season on 73 points. Event 3 will take place next month with six rounds still to go in the season.

Nicolas Longuet : "It was honestly a much better event this time around. If we look at our qualifying pace, we had both cars in Q3 on every track except Spa where Patrik was the victim of a glitch. We outscored most of our direct team championship competitors, but we clearly still need to work more on our race pace, because that’s where the points are scored."

Fabrizio Donoso : "It was a hard first race for me as my race essentially ended during lap 1. We bounced back for the second race where I qualified third, my best result since 2018, so it was a big improvement from last year. The second race was confirmation for me that I can fight for wins, so it’s time to focus on the rest of the season and finish where we belong."

Patrik Sipos : "I was very happy with us during this event, we improved a lot especially in Qualifying trim, but we are lacking a bit of luck. Honestly, nothing goes our way this year. It is what it is, and we have to get past it and move on. There is still half a season to go !"

Richard Arnaud (manager) : "This was a frustrating event to be honest. In terms of points, we are currently fourth which is a positive, but we know we can do much more. We are close to championship leaders Mercedes & Red Bull. We got a bit unlucky sometimes and have made some mistakes as well. But as a team we are much better than last year. Our time will come, we just have to trust the process, recharge our batteries, and be ready for the next event.”