Alpine’s 2026 season has taken an expensive turn after Pierre Gasly’s dramatic crash at the Miami Grand Prix pushed the team’s cumulative damage bill past $1.3 million. The French driver now sits at the top of F1’s unofficial “damage cost” rankings – a list no team principal wants to lead.
Gasly’s race ended early in Miami when he made contact with Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls car at Turn 17. The two were battling for position when Lawson’s rear tyre locked under braking. The Racing Bulls driver later told Viaplay that he lost his gearbox at the critical moment, causing him to slide into Gasly and send the Alpine airborne. Gasly flipped over and landed on the tyre barrier, bringing his car to a halt and his race to an end.
The timing made it worse for Alpine. While Gasly was out, teammate Franco Colapinto showed what the car was capable of by driving to a solid eighth-place finish. That result highlighted the performance that was lost when Gasly retired, and it added frustration to an already costly weekend.
According to figures compiled by Dense-Strategy-867, the repair bill for Gasly’s Miami shunt comes to around $960,000. That single incident takes his personal damage tally for the season to $1.11 million, putting him ahead of every other driver on the grid. When you add Colapinto’s $260,000 in damages so far in 2026, Alpine’s total repair costs climb to over $1.37 million.
That number matters because of F1’s budget cap. While crash damage isn’t excluded from the cap entirely, significant repair costs eat into the money teams can spend on development, upgrades, and performance. For a team like Alpine, which is still working to close the gap to the front, losing over $1.3 million to repairs before the European season gets into full swing is a serious setback.
Gasly’s crash also pushed Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar down to second in the damage rankings with $1.012 million after his own expensive collision in Miami. Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli sits third on $907,000, while Haas driver Oliver Bearman is fourth with $857,000. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri rounds out the top five on $641,000.
Further down the list, Max Verstappen has cost Red Bull $500,000 in repairs, and Sergio Perez’s tally for Cadillac stands at $410,000. Esteban Ocon and Lewis Hamilton have each cost their teams over $300,000, while George Russell and Alexander Albon sit just below that mark.
At the lower end, several drivers have managed to keep their cars clean. Arvid Lindblad, Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, and Valtteri Bottas all sit on zero damage costs for the season so far.
For Alpine, the immediate concern is financial and operational. A $960,000 repair for one crash means spare parts, chassis components, and man-hours that were budgeted for other areas now have to be diverted to rebuild Gasly’s car. It also raises questions about risk management and on-track incidents, especially when the contact was triggered by a mechanical failure on the Racing Bulls car.
Team principal Oliver Oakes will be looking to limit further damage as F1 heads back to Europe. With the budget cap still tight and development races intensifying, every million spent on repairs is a million not spent on lap time. Alpine’s challenge now is to keep both cars on track and avoid adding to a bill that is already the highest on the grid.
Miami showed that Alpine has pace, but it also showed how quickly that potential can be offset by one moment of contact. If the team wants to turn its season around, keeping the cars intact will be just as important as finding more performance.
