First look: The Alpine front wing hint that suggests a change of course

Alpine have been extremely quiet when it comes to producing updates for the A525 this season, as the team haven’t announced any new aerodynamic components for the Chinese, Japanese, Bahrain or Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in the car presentation document ahead of those events.

And, whilst they did so in Australia that was simply an exercise in cataloguing what had changed on the car since last season. But, could that no update path be about to change in Miami though?

Different is not always new

This image showing two different nose and front wing configurations outside their garage ahead of the event might suggest so.

Hold your horses though, as whilst the nose and front wing assembly on the top of the stand outside their garage hasn’t been raced so far this season, it’s not actually new. It’s a design long thought abandoned from last season, when the team dropped the wider, longer nose assembly for its narrower sibling at the Qatar Grand Prix.

It would appear that Alpine have kept the old solution on hand though, as part of their spares package, using the nose and front wing when they’re pushing the car around in the pitlane and practicing pit stops etc, rather than risking damaging any of the new assemblies.

However, that’s not to say it might never see the car again, given that there’s no unilateral direction that teams have taken up and down the grid when it comes to the design of the nose and how it interacts with the central section of the wing.

To be clear, whilst the design of the nose is clearly different, those changes also have consequences when it comes to the shape and performance of the front wing too, with the static inboard sections beside the nose wider on the newer configuration, which also has a bearing on the width of the adjustable portion of the wing.

Consequently we can also see how this has an impact on the height and shape of the flaps, with a much deeper trailing edge section that tapers at either end on the older specification solution.

Let’s not forget that whilst the nomenclature has changed for 2025, this year’s chassis is the same as the A524, with the team opting to retain most of the hardware for this season, in order that they can deploy extra resources when designing next year’s challenger.

This has the added benefit of allowing the team to reuse items, such as this nose and front wing, without the need for major modifications.

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