The Woking stable is an example of hope
The 2023 F1 season has delivered two great examples of exponential growth absolutely unpredictable. The first was the 'slingshot' start of the Aston Martinwhich starting from the tests in Bahrain at the beginning of 2023 showed off an AMR23 which in the first phase of the season was even the second force on the track behind Red Bull, achieving a performance gain of more than two seconds in the comparison between the AMR22 and the AMR23 in Sakhir.
Then, the McLaren he made up for a nightmare start to the championship. Team principal Andrea Stella had declared that the team's season would only begin in the summer to coincide with the arrival of the updates to the MCL60, but no one would have ever imagined that, like Aston Martin, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri would find themselves among also in this case the hands are the second force on the track behind the RB19.
What McLaren achieved is a sign of hope for all the teams at the start. Finding solutions capable of making a sensational leap in quality is possible and that is what he is confident in Pierre Gasly. The French driver in his first season as an Alpine representative took full advantage of all the favorable opportunities to obtain prestigious results – the strategy that led to the podium in the Netherlands at Zandvoort behind Verstappen and Alonso was named the 'call' of the year tactical level – but the transalpine car has never had enough speed to be a true protagonist in 2023: “I don't feel any jealousy towards McLarenbut admiration, they are the example that a lot of ground can be recovered by working well – Gasly's words reported by the newspaper F1i.com – McLaren has shown that it is possible to leave the middle of the grid and reach the top, so why can't we do it too? There were several reasons behind the fact that we didn't have a great season in 2023. We improved in many ways, our rivals simply improved more than us. We simply need a fast car from the start of the season.”
According to the former team manager Otmar Szafnauer the Alpine will always be 'trapped' in terms of performance due to a power unit that produces 15 horsepower compared to its competitors. The French team tried to get the OK from the FIA to break the freeze and intervene on the engine without success. The new team principal Bruno Famin instead he argued that no one at Alpine has had the courage to come up with conceptual ideas in recent times and this trend will change starting in 2024.
#Gasly #jealousy #admiration #McLaren
