2023 was a year of change at Alpine, with the departure of several important figures and a reshuffle at management level. However, behind the scenes we are actively working on the future, with the hiring of new engineers and the purchase of cutting-edge equipment which should close the technological gap that the team is currently experiencing on various fronts.
Although the French team has made preparation for the weekend one of its strong points, in reality this year some rather important limitations have further been highlighted, linked both to the constraints imposed by the current project and by some equipment that is not up to par. For example, during the 2023 season the updates were stopped early as the engineers understood that, with some limitations of the A523 project, it would not be possible to make the most of the innovations, so it was decided to postpone them to 2024. One of the interventions will be on the chassis level, with slimmer shapes which should guarantee greater design freedom.
Given the approach of the new technical regulations which will come into force from 2026, this season's single-seater will also be the basis of next year's car, in order to invest the budget differently. Although the new season is upon us, in reality all the teams are already actively thinking about 2026, including Alpine, which is investing in purchasing new structures and hiring new staff.
Photo by: Alpine
The Alpine simulator
Among the new features there will also be a cutting-edge simulator, the purchase of which had been approved under the direction of Otmar Szafnauer and which should be operational by 2025 after the relevant tests, as per practice. To try to strengthen the department, Alpine has also hired new simulation staff, thus strengthening the current group. Thanks to the additional spending capacity derived from Capex, which guaranteed greater freedom of action for the various teams, other factory tools have also been updated.
Matt Harman believes that the changes will bear fruit in view of the design of the 2026 car: “Our focus is on the future, on the 2026 regulations and on the cars we will have to make between now and then. We also have a great program in both the sites [Enstone e Viry] to improve capabilities and functions. We have all the funding needed to make them, we will get all the equipment up and running, there will be systems alive and working to power the 2026 regulations. But they will also be used in cars well before then.
“We have focused on our simulation tools, we need to be more precise, better at getting good answers to difficult questions more quickly. I have experienced this in teams I have worked on in the past. And this is one of our improvements in in terms of capacity. So we are doing all these things. From my point of view, the plan for the last three years has remained unchanged, but we are just accelerating it. We are well funded. We have enough people, it's just a matter of moving forward,” he said. explained the Alpine technical director.
Photo by: Erik Junius
Pierre Gasly, Alpine A523
For Alpine this will be an important step forward on several levels. First of all because it will be a completely new platform, unlike the current one, which is now 20 years old, having been purchased by McLaren about a decade ago at a time when the team did not have large funds available. Furthermore, the new simulator will be created in a much larger dedicated structure.
A significant move in a historical context in which simulations are becoming increasingly important in preparing for the weekend: just think that in recent years Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, McLaren and Aston Martin have decided to invest on this front, focusing on new tools future-proof.
“It will be put into operation with a view to 2026. It's fantastic, we're really excited, it will be in an absolutely impressive building, which will also facilitate other interesting developments. I'm very excited. What we have currently is a very, very good tool. But the its resolution and bandwidth are not yet sufficient. I believe this will give pilots an additional level of confidence in the simulator correlation, which for 2026 will be very important.”
The construction of the new simulator is part of a broader program which will also reorganize and modernize other instruments. A key aspect to be able to count on increasingly better information that does not lead engineers astray during development.
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 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.
Harman admitted that the team sometimes went in the wrong direction when reacting to data that wasn't precise enough. “It's been a bit of a sweet spot. When your instruments aren't precise enough, I think you can get to a point where you can start to believe some of the things you see in the instruments you have around you.”
“And if you're not very good at looping, as I call it, if you're not so good at checking and rechecking and questioning yourself, I think you can come to the wrong conclusion and take a direction that can remain pending for six months. I think we are improving in this sense. Furthermore, as I said before, the structures are improving”, added the technical director of the French team.
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