Formula 1 Preseason Report #7 – Alpine

Alpine has been consistent in fighting with the best of the mid-field F1 teams. Could it be they are too satisfied with where they are?

While the start of the Formula One season underway, we’re admittedly running a bit behind in some of our team preseason previews here at AutoRacingDigest.com.

So, even though we have the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix (March 3-5) now in our rearview mirror, our exceptional F1 expert, Gregg Fielding, continues to break down each of the 10 teams that will take part in the global chase for the championship. The focus of today's episodes are Alpine and Mercedes (with two more teams still to come).

Here’s the teams we’ve covered thus far:

* Mercedes

* McLaren F1 Team

* Williams Racing

* AlphaTauri

* Haas F1 Team

* Aston Martin

* Alfa Romeo

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Alpine has been consistent in fighting with the best of the mid-field F1 teams. Could it be they are too satisfied with where they are?

Back in the winter of 2019, the Renault F1 team (later to be rebranded as Alpine), came to their one customer team for their engines, McLaren, with a proposal to become partner teams (an unusual arrangement by F1 standards), which would involve the teams sharing parts and facilities in addition to engines.

McLaren responded not only by shooting down the partnership, but announcing they would be switching to Mercedes engines when their then-current deal ran out after 2020.

To hammer home the end of the relationship, Renault's then-No. 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo, who had spent just one year with the team, accepted an offer from McLaren to move over and fill that team’s driver vacancy, apparently feeling unhappy with Alpine’s leadership structure.

It wasn’t the end of the exodus. Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul announced his departure the next winter, certainly something of a shock considering that unlike Ricciardo, he didn’t have another big-time job lined up. In January 2022, legendary French driver Alain Prost quit his role as a team advisor, departing with some unpleasant words for the team and CEO Laurent Rossi.

At the summer break, it was another exalted driver gone, this one still active, as Fernando Alonso turned down the team’s renewal offer to instead leave for Aston Martin, saying he felt he was “more wanted” by the British team.

Perhaps the reason Alpine didn’t show Alonso the respect he felt from Aston Martin was the potential replacement they had waiting, organizational driver and F2 Champion Oscar Piastri. But after Piastri was announced by the team as Alonso’s successor, the driver went on Twitter and said he was also exiting, chiding the team for going public about his future without actually having a deal in place. He was soon announced as also moving to McLaren.

What makes this stream of people from all areas of the organization deciding to end their association with Alpine hard to understand is this isn’t a unit that has been struggling in the standings - they’ve been fourth or fifth for each of the last five years - certainly meeting expectations.

They’re a full factory team for a major car brand (at least in France), manufacturing their own engines and seemingly having all the resources necessary to eventually become a contender for a World Championship.

Besides the former team employees having a lack of respect for management, the fans don’t seem to be behind the team either. Otmar Szafnauer, who moved over from Aston Martin last year to replace Abiteboul, said that his previous team had “more pressure, less fun, less achievement”. But less pressure and more fun don’t make for success at this level – at least not a higher level of success than they’ve achieved so far.

In the aftermath of the Piastri debacle,z] Alpine was able to find a decent replacement for Alonso in Pierre Gasly, who was desperate to get out of his career dead end at Alpha Tauri. The French team having two French drivers will be a fun configuration for fans in their home country, although the duo of Gasly and Esteban Ocon have been known to have their differences in the years that have passed since they were childhood friends and began their driving careers together.

Gasly insists that while they may no longer be close personally, he doesn’t expect the two to have any more conflict than other driver pairings in the field, and Szafnauer discussed the relationship with Ocon before the signing, saying the veteran of the team was supportive of the move.

Gasly may be overly optimistic, as having two drivers fighting for the continuation of their careers in the midfield can lead to a lack of harmony – and neither is likely prepared to accept being the team’s number two right now.

On the engineering side, Chief Technical Officer Pat Fry and Technical Director Matt Harman enter their second season with the team following a successful 2022, in which the car had perhaps the best speed of the mid-field although also suffering some reliability issues.

In an interview, Harman seemed cautiously optimistic about the car’s early performance, while at the same time stating they planned to upgrade the car as soon as the opening race of the season in Bahrain. Harman wasn’t sounding any alarms, but there also was nothing in his statement that would give any impression they were expecting any great leaps forward.

Last season was a collection of finishes in the bottom half of the points positions mixed in with too many retirements (particularly on Alonso’s side), which ended up being good enough for fourth place overall.

Alonso was able to reach the final stage of qualifying in an impressive 17 of 22 races, and had it not been for the car failing to finish six events, he likely would have placed behind only the drivers from the top three teams in the final standings. As it was, he ended up ninth, one position behind his teammate Ocon, who like Alonso failed to reach the podium during the season but was consistently in the range of fourth through tenth.

Alpine seems an organization oddly lacking in identity despite being the defacto successor to a team that won two championships in the 2000s, has roots going back to the 1970s, and is part of a French motor racing tradition that is perhaps the oldest in the world. They seem happy enough to be able to promote a luxury car brand available only in France and enjoying the ever-increasing monetary evaluation of F1 teams, while having little ambition towards prominence or greatness.

2022 Results

Team finish: fourth place in constructor standings, one hundred and seventy-three points scored, three hundred and forty-two points behind third.

Driver Results:

* Esteban Ocon: 8th Place in driver standings, 92 points scored, best finish – fourth (Japan)

* Fernando Alonso: 9th Place in driver standings, 81 points scored, best finish – fifth (three times)

Predictions for 2023:

Whether or not you can consider Alpine a success in their years since taking over the former Lotus team depends on your definition – they were able to celebrate grabbing fourth from McLaren last year, but were a mile away from the top three in both performance and results, and haven’t done much that would make you think the situation will change.

While their two drivers are both regarded as more than adequate at the Formula 1 level, neither are considered elite. While Aston Martin has gone after Red Bull and Mercedes to lure away top car builders, Alpine is sticking with a McLaren discard and a lower-level Mercedes employee who has achieved reasonable success but also perhaps has reached their ceiling.

The team simply does not seem to have the drive or the organization to become a top contender anytime soon and seems happy simply competing in the mid-field. While I expect them to once again finish in front of the currently dysfunctional McLaren team, I don’t think they can hold off the perhaps more stressful but also more driven Aston Martin unit, and will end up dropping one place back into fifth in 2023.