F1 | Alpine: A524s have reached their minimum weight limit

At a time when it is in the midst of a revolution among the technical leaders – the latest arrival is David Sanchez, announced only a few hours ago – Alpine has nevertheless managed to achieve one of its objectives in this first part of the season, finally reaching the limit of minimal weight that he had been trying to grasp for some time.

The A524s of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly will race at the Miami Grand Prix scheduled for this weekend with a car that is finally lighter after the team was forced to make it heavier last winter after failing to pass the crash tests necessary for homologation of the frame.

Alpine, together with Williams and Sauber, is one of the three teams that have not yet scored any points this season. In China it introduced an update to the floor which had helped the French single-seaters get closer to the minimum weight limit, as stated by Performance technical director Ciaron Pilbeam.

Now, with updated flooring on both cars and the introduction of new, lighter components, the A524s have reached their minimum weight limit this weekend.

Bruno Famin, team principal and vice president of Alpine, declared in this regard: “We were not particularly overweight at the beginning of the year and the gain we will have will be around 2 tenths. But every little gain is a good thing and we are working for this” , he told Motorsport.com.

“The weight wasn’t the main problem with the car. That was that it lacked downforce and we had difficulty making the tires work in qualifying. Of course it was good to finally get the minimum weight, but it wasn’t our main problem.”

“But I’m happy, because the team managed to fix this aspect in a short time and the team took the right direction. We’re working hard to try to do everything faster.”

“In Shanghai we debuted the new fund which, instead, we should have only had here in Miami. But the guys in the factory worked incredibly hard, creating one for Shanghai. This is a good sign, but it’s just of a small part of the gap from the others that we needed to fill.

Famin also spoke about the path that awaits the team to improve a disastrous situation from a technical point of view. The arrival of David Sanchez in Enstone is one of the pieces that will have to help the team over the next few months.

“We have made updates from an aerodynamic point of view up to now, but we know that all this is only part of the journey we have to do. Now, with the new organisation, with the arrival of Sanchez yesterday, we will move on to the next phase For the moment it is too early to talk about how and when we can change things.”