F1 | Alpine A524: chassis revised to become more efficient

During this season, Alpine achieved two podiums at the weekends of the Monaco and Dutch Grands Prix in Zandvoort, to which was added the third place obtained in the sprint in Belgium, although the latter two were favored by variable weather conditions and a good strategy.

A haul which however clashes with the bitter reality of a team which in the space of a year has fallen from fourth to sixth place in the constructors' standings, overtaken by companies such as McLaren and Aston Maritn which have been able to take that step forward in which no the French team succeeded. This also prompted a major internal review of the team's management and organizational structure, which led to the departure of Otmar Szafnauer and the promotion of Bruno Famin, previously responsible for the Formula 1 Power Unit department, to the role of Team Principal.

Knowing we had a good base in our hands with the 2022 single-seater, generally limited by reliability problems, the objective was to intervene on specific issues, adding both aerodynamic load and removing several kilos, in order to bring it to the minimum weight limit imposed by the FIA. A target achieved last winter and which allowed us to play with more freedom on the positioning of ballast and weight distribution, although the latter is still limited to a range regulated by the Federation.

In fact, in the first part of the season the A523 proved to be a good car, so much so that it led the team to think that in certain events it could end up annoying Mercedes and Ferrari. However, except on rare occasions, the team was unable to realize the potential of the single-seater, while in the rest of the world championship design limitations emerged which pushed the engineers to think carefully about how to move forward with development.

Although the team brought numerous technical innovations during the season, especially in terms of the floor, bodywork and front wings, the engineers understood that the development of the current car would not have made great progress towards overturning the rankings. For this reason it was then decided to work in advance towards 2024 with changes defined as significant, while some updates designed for 2023 were postponed to the following year.

Indeed, Matt Harman admitted that the A523's chassis architecture prevented the team from carrying out some developments planned for last season. It not only limited the possibility of replicating some solutions seen on the single-seaters of other teams, but also some internal ideas: “The chassis and what we call the suspension support, or the main chassis, created some problems for us in terms of volumes. Not only with what other cars have, but also with our ideas and our development, this limited us a bit.”

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Pierre Gasly, Alpine A523

“We had a floor update planned for the rest of the season, which in the end we decided not to carry and left it for next year's car. Only because, in reality, to get maximum performance, we needed a little ' more volume and we didn't have it for that car”, explained the Alpine technical director.

And it is precisely in this area that Alpine intervened during the winter, trying to streamline the shock and other elements in some points to guarantee greater design freedom. The objective is not only to increase the overall aerodynamic load, but also to improve the overall efficiency, which often undermined the performance of the A523, so much so that it was necessary to unload the wings to compensate for the engine problems of the transalpine unit. It is no mystery that the Renault Power Unit presents a deficit compared to its opponents even after the revolution of the internal combustion unit in 2022 and, given the freeze imposed for a few years, it is not possible to intervene radically to close the gap. If at the hardware level the only changes allowed are those for reliability, at the software level the engineers are working to improve the energy management of the hybrid part, the one on which the French company has shown the greatest weaknesses.

Clearly, with the fact that in 2025 the teams will start working substantially in a 2026 key, in order to be ready for the regulation change, the single-seaters that will take to the track this season will have a lot in common with next year's cars, an aspect that he also pushes us to take a more aggressive approach in terms of the solutions adopted: “I think the important thing is to look beyond the cars we will see this year. If we showed up with a car that people see now, in 2025 it would be very obsolete. We must aim much further, to have a two-year horizon.”

It is no coincidence that at the end of the season, when it was now understood that the ranking situation would remain substantially unchanged, the team took advantage of the opportunity to carry out specific tests aimed at 2024. An approach also partially used by Aston Martin , which had brought a revised fund to Austin with some ideas taken from other teams, which however did not work as hoped. Nonetheless, the data collected helped to better understand how it worked for the winter work, when the first package of the single-seater would be defined.

For example, experiments were conducted in Mexico with both Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, but also extended to recent weekends, such as in Abu Dhabi. Specific tests, with components made ad hoc in the factory, which helped confirm some design choices for 2024, also because we must not forget that the development of the A524 began very early. In fact, the pilots began working on the simulator as early as September, earlier than what traditionally happens.

“These are changes that you don't see in terms of lap times, but in the data. And I think it's another one of those things that will help us, once again, with the aerodynamic direction, the sensitivity and the way the aerodynamics work on the car, but also with some of the mechanical systems at the rear of the car that really control how these cars can operate in corners, which is important.”