I drove Alpine’s A110 R – it’s a pin-sharp car built by racers that’s extremely fast and easy to drive

THERE are ten F1 teams – and six of them make real cars for the road.

Mercedes. McLaren. Ferrari. Alpine. Alfa Romeo. Aston Martin.

4

4

Of those six, only three of them make cars under £100k.

Mercedes. Alpine. Alfa Romeo.

Of those three, only one uses its F1 expertise to make a featherweight two-seat sports car.

Alpine.

This track-focused A110 R was optimised in the F1 team’s aero lab at Enstone.

Every part that could possibly be carbon fibre is carbon fibre. Even the wheels.

They cost £2k a corner and you’ll notice they don’t match.

Why?

The front wheels aid brake cooling and the rears cut drag. Proper geeky stuff.

The side skirts – also carbon fibre – widen the flat underbelly of the car to cut turbulence. The swan-neck rear wing adds downforce. The carbon fibre engine cover saves 4kg over glass.

I could go on but I won’t.

Except to say the A110 R looks wicked in the exact same blue as the Alpine F1 car.

So what’s it like to drive?

Hilarious. Everything pin-sharp. Everything easy. You can really feel the lightness and rigidity. It’s a truly special car.

And it’s fast.

Three hundred horses in a car weighing little more than a Walkers six-pack is all you need for a willing dance partner. It’s just 1,082kg.

An Alpine engineer told me: “It’s easy to add power to go faster in a straight line. Add lightness and you will go faster everywhere.”

There’s no denying the A110 R is expensive at £89,990. That’s £38k more than a standard A110. But Alpine is having no trouble shifting them.

This year’s allocation is sold out.

4

And you know a car is good when the big chief at Renault tries a prototype and orders the first one. Alpine’s CEO bagged car No2.

Also, this is a cracking investment. It’s a French Porsche Cayman – but much rarer. And in 2026, they’ll be gone forever as Alpine becomes an EV-only brand. Grrrr.

That said, I’m excited to see Alpine’s spicy version of the Renault 5. The “urban racer” will be 220hp with an F1-style boost button. Electric torque vectoring will help it corner like a go-kart. And it should be HALF the price of an A110 R.

4

We’ll see it in April.

Alpine is also working on a sporty SUV codenamed “DZ110”, as well as an electric replacement for the A110 much further down the road.

Three very different cars but with the same DNA.

Cars built by racers for racers.