Alpine closed the season in fifth place in the constructors’ championship, thus repeating the placings achieved under the Renault banner in 2020 and 2019, a step below the fourth place with which the French manufacturer concluded the 2018 championship. The recent period of the Anglo-French team was therefore marked by consistency and after having risen from the back of the grid where it was in the early years of the turbo-hybrid era, the team consolidated in the center-group, without however being able to fill the remaining gap from the top teams. Unlike previous seasons, 2021 nevertheless marked the return to victory with Esteban Ocon’s success in Budapest supported by Fernando Alonso’s masterful defense against Lewis Hamilton, without neglecting the Spaniard’s podium in Qatar at the end of a performance that became a manifesto of the ‘Alpine 2021.
The A521, single-seater star of the last season, was born on the basis of the Renault RS20, unchanged in the chassis but modified at the rear, without however ever providing more detailed information on how to spend the development tokens. Repeating what Red Bull also did at the end of 2020, Alpine intervenes on the rear suspension of the car, lifting the upper triangle arms in detail by means of a raised support for attachment to the hub holder on the wheel side. The intent is to free up a larger passage section for the flows in the environment behind the car, energizing the wake to encourage the extraction of air from the diffuser, resulting in greater aerodynamic load generated from the bottom. The rise of the suspension also allows for the first time to position the twin exhaust tailpipes of the turbocharger wastegate valve below the upper triangles of the suspension itself, reducing aerodynamic disturbance and potentially seeking a slight interaction between the hot gases and the diffuser.
However, the distinctive feature of the French car is the distribution of the radiators and other components inside the bonnet, taking the dominant philosophy on the grid to the extreme. In fact, between 2019 and 2020 Ferrari places a greater number of radiant masses, commonly known as radiators, inside the bellies, thus lowering the center of gravity to reduce the intensity of lateral weight transfers on the outer wheels when cornering, to benefit of vehicle dynamics. The red solution, also taken from Haas, streamlines the hood in the upper part, reducing the aerodynamic obstruction in front of the rear wing. However, in 2021 the Scuderia di Maranello returns to a configuration more similar to the competition, centralizing part of the radiant masses at the head of the power unit to reduce the dimensions of the sidepods to fairing the bellies. The goal is to leave more freedom to the aerodynamicists for the direction of flows aimed at generating load from the bottom, whose gains outweigh the disadvantages in terms of vehicle dynamics. Alpine takes this concept to the extreme, centralizing the cooling system even more and designing a single-seater with a voluminous bonnet and an imposing group of air intakes above the driver.. The French house is the only one to pursue this path, a risky choice and not necessarily as profitable as the others, which undoubtedly denotes design identity and capacity for autonomous thinking without conforming to traditional schemes. The distribution of the elements of the cooling circuit will also be of great interest on the cars of the next technical cycle, when the introduction of Venturi channels on the sides of the bottom and the opening of larger cooling grids in the bonnet could change the design guidelines. also on this front.
Growing season
In the first stages of the championship, Alpine launches a large aerodynamic development package. At the inaugural race in Bahrain a fund updated compared to that seen in the tests makes its debut, while in the next trip to Imola a new front wing arrives. According to Marcin Budkowski himself, Technical Director of the team, the new aileron is the result of the desire to react to the 2021 aerodynamic restrictions at the bottom and diffuser with a correction of the flow trend that starts from the front end. At the third round of the season in Portimao the A521 is equipped with a new diffuser, which precedes the arrival of updates in the bargeboards area on the occasion of the Monaco Grand Prix, thus outlining an aerodynamic development path that embraces every area of the car.
All in all, the 2021 aerodynamic limitations at the rear benefit Alpine, as the Renault RS20 was a single-seater that had reached the limit of exploitation of the front and therefore still had a margin at the rear. The initial reduction of the aerodynamic load at the rear also decreases the contact pressure between the tires and the ground, helping to contain the fluctuations that in 2020 affected the grip guaranteed by the tires.
The A521 ranks among the fastest cars on the straight, although it does not reach the peaks expressed by McLaren, from which however a gap in power from the Mercedes power unit persists. One of the main qualities of Alpine is the docility of the single-seater on the tires, which on some occasions allows you to make one less stop than its rivals, without suffering dramatic consequences in terms of pace but on the contrary helping to achieve important results. This is what happens, for example, in Brazil and Qatar, the latter race where the single stop proves to be decisive for Alonso’s podium, while in Turkey in the wet Esteban Ocon closes at the edge of the points zone by crossing the finish line with the same set of tires. mounted at the start. This quality is underlined by Fernando Alonso on the occasion of the third place obtained in Qatar: “We also saw in Brazil that we made a stop and the other two. It seems that a stopover was possible for us, although not easy. For the others it was not so obvious. We have one nice car that keeps the tires alive, we are happy”.
In the balance of the entire season, Alpine pays a slight performance gap from AlphaTauri, the most competitive car on average on every type of track, from which it accumulates a delay in the standings before the success in Budapest and from which it is then reassembled in the second half of the season. However, the team from beyond the Alps grows with the progress of the championship and in the moment of the decisive confrontation with the Scuderia di Faenza valid for fifth place in the World Championship, in Qatar the team staged one of its best performances of the season, while the rivals shipwrecked with a race pace not up to par.
The words of the drivers and key figures of the team reveal great optimism in view of 2022. The Alpine protagonist of the next regulatory cycle will also be driven by a power unit with a new architecture, which cannot be excluded from incorporating the split turbo used by Mercedes and Honda, with turbine and compressor separated from the MGU-H electric generator placed between them. Bridging the power gap from the top of the class will be one of the essential conditions for the French manufacturer to aspire to a successful 2022. For the rest, like the rivals, every consideration is postponed to the debut on the track of the new single-seater.
#Alpine #waiting #symphony #FormulaPassionit