The Formula 1 teams are starting to prepare the presentations of the 2024 single-seaters: the first to be seen will be Haas which on Friday will drop the veils of the VF-24 showing the new livery on the rendering of the car which, physically, will be revealed later.
But there is one team in particular that is in trouble because it has not yet obtained chassis approval from the FIA, although it has already passed the feared frontal crash test which forced Red Bull to repeat the destructive test at the beginning of the month , after having failed in December's attempt, in which he damaged the first frame of the RB20 in search of maximum lightness.
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Alpine A523: technical detail of the lower anti-intrusion cone that protrudes from the bottom
There is great excitement at Alpine because the A524 has to repeat the lateral test, the one that must guarantee anti-intrusion with a static test that applies a load of 300 kN to the sides of the body. In search of maximum lightness of the frame, the test was not successful and in the next attempt an extra skin will be enough to achieve the goal.
It is not a good start to the season for the technical staff led by Matt Harman, the English engineer who arrived in Enstone two years ago from Mercedes, where he was responsible for the integration between the chassis and the power unit and, therefore, for the design of the exchange.
Photo by: Giorgio Piola
The upper anti-intrusion cone that had been moved to the Mercedes AMG F1 W10 in 2019 for regulatory reasons
It should not be surprising, therefore, that Alpine has paid great attention to studying better packaging between the body and the Renault engine. On the A524, therefore, the arrangement of the accessories, including radiators, would have been revised to arrive at more extreme shapes from an aerodynamic point of view and guarantee the French 6-cylinder the necessary air flow useful for cooling without having to penalize efficiency with exaggerated hot air vents even on fast circuits, as we observed last year.
Alpine, after the disappointing sixth place in the Manufacturers' World Championship in 2023, must find the right place in the Circus being the expression of a great Manufacturer. At Silverstone it was decided to decapitate the team's top management with the exit of the team principal, Otmar Szafnauer, the CTO, Pat Fry, and the head of engineers, Alan Permane (in negotiations with Racing Bulls for a place in Milton Keynes) .
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Bruno Famin, team principal of Alpine F1 Team
The management of the team was entrusted to Bruno Famin, Alpine vice president and then head of Motorsport before also becoming team principal. The Frenchman, ex-Peugeot, is faced with a problem (certainly solvable) which however slows down the development plans of a car which should be in an advanced stage of construction.
The president and CEO of the Renault Group, Luca De Meo, will not be happy, as he has been waiting for some time for the flowering of a brand that has so far only achieved one lucky victory in Hungary in 2021.
Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, the two transalpine drivers, will have to start another interim season, or did they take concepts to the extreme in Enstone and, once the side crash problem has been resolved, will they be able to field a more competitive single-seater? We'll find out soon…
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