by VALERIO BARRETTA
Alpine, what will 2024 be like?
The time for proclamations is over Alpine. After years spent defining mostly unrealistic objectives (for example that of reaching the level of Mercedes) the Enstone team has scaled back expectations and results in 2023, looking at its own home and everything that was wrong within it.
The purge of Otmar Szafnauer, Pat Fry and Alan Permane was just one of many changes in the team's top management, which also involved former CEO Laurent Rossi and Davide Brivio. The drivers – at least them – are always the same: Pierre Gasley and Esteban Or withwho however have their contracts expiring and are called upon to earn confirmation on the track, an aspect which could reawaken the latent acrimony between the two.
The nervousness in the team is palpable and the revolving doors do not help either the technical continuity or the clear ideas needed for the new project. Ocon even confessed his doubts to his colleague David Croft: “He told me before Christmas that he thinks Alpine is a bit slow, but I don't know who is really fit“, these were the words of the Briton at the event Autosport International.
Alpine certainly knows that it is starting with a serious handicap, namely that of having the slowest engine of the lot. A disadvantage that the team tried in vain to cancel with an intervention by the FIA, former team principal Szafnauer considered irrecoverable, since to be counterbalanced by the efficiency of the chassis requires investments and technical choices that are impossible to put into practice due to the presence of the budget cap.
#Esteban #Ocon #doubts #Alpine #FormulaPassion
