Alpine F1 Team 2023, Édition Bleu, blanc, rouge - Team Thread

The new car will be launched on February 16, 2023: https://www.autohebd...t-de-la523.html (en francais, but with English dans le texte)

Edited by FLB, 04 January 2023 - 17:24.

The new car will be launched on February 16, 2023: https://www.autohebd...t-de-la523.html (en francais, but with English dans le texte)

And loads of french fans are pissed off by the location of the unveil.

Dommage! 

Well... All the best to Alpine, as long as you don't go past Aston.    (Hope you get rid of that snake Otmar and the pink.) Good luck! 

And loads of french fans are pissed off by the location of the unveil.

Expecting Crofty to waffle about The Great Battle of Normandy whenever Gasly and/or Ocon will come into camera shot.

Expecting Crofty to waffle about The Great Battle of Normandy whenever Gasly and/or Ocon will come into camera shot.

I hadn't realised that this had become une vraie équipe Normande!  Alpine itself started in Dieppe and both drivers are from the region.  So obviously have the launch in Londres....

I hadn't realised that this had become une vraie équipe Normande!  Alpine itself started in Dieppe and both drivers are from the region.  So obviously have the launch in Londres....

Which is why the French Twittersphere is (mostly) all up in arms about it, as Viryfan pointed out   

Alpine: Ocon has to make "better judgements" racing team-mate (autosport.com)

Edited by FLB, 05 January 2023 - 11:25.

I'm going to make this prediction now: Ocon will beat Gasly, significantly. 

I'm going to make this prediction now: Ocon will beat Gasly, significantly. 

I think so as well. I predict that the two will have a coming together before the middle of the season, so at or before the British GP. 

I'm going to make this prediction now: Ocon will beat Gasly, significantly.

Edited by Viryfan, 05 January 2023 - 13:54.

I feel that Pierre may be the better qualifier and will likely start ahead of Ocon for most races.

Ocon has improved in race starts from his '20 debut with the team , often losing places at lights out, to winning the most spots ahead for this season.

Pierre has had his share of 1rst lap battles where he sometimes collides with the other drivers around; and other times, losing spots at the start.  I think race pace wise, they are about equal which means, if Pierre takes a while adjusting with the car, he may very well find himself behind Ocon for most of the '23 season.  

I think Rossi hopes secretely that Gasly will take over the lead in the driver pairing.

The way Rossi talks about Gasly seems to suggest that.
 

 Otmar Szafnauer is already putting pressure on Ocon by the looks of things...

 Otmar Szafnauer is already putting pressure on Ocon by the looks of things...

First backing Ocon and letting him get away with some questionable driving against his teammate to the extent it eventually drove off Alonso, and now put pressure on Ocon before new recruit Gasly has even turned a wheel in their car. Someone not familiar with the teams recent leadership history would have a hard time making sense of it, but we just know it's the way they work, don't we?

Which is why the French Twittersphere is (mostly) all up in arms about it, as Viryfan pointed out   

 

Alpine: Ocon has to make "better judgements" racing team-mate (autosport.com)

It's going to be more fun watching Otmar from a distance 

After having stolen the flag/coat of arms of Normandy, the English are stealing the A523 launch place? 
Jokes aside, A522 launch was in Paris... it makes sense to alternate with London : ) 

Dommage! 

 

Well... All the best to Alpine, as long as you don't go past Aston.    (Hope you get rid of that snake Otmar and the pink.) Good luck! 

Alpine is already ahead of Aston... so they cant go past Aston indeed...

And some people pretend in twitter that the Aston was the fastest car in the midifield in race pace after Spa... which is BS. If the Aston was 1.53% from the fatsest car, the Alpine was 1.35% from p1 in that same time period. And way faster since the introduction of each teams 'B car'. (Aston in Spain, Alpine in GB) 

Edited by Alburaq, 06 January 2023 - 08:29.

After having stolen the flag/coat of arms of Normandy, the English are stealing the A523 launch place?  

I think you will find that the Normans stole England.

We Saxons are still not happy about 1066!

After having stolen the flag/coat of arms of Normandy, the English are stealing the A523 launch place?
Jokes aside, A522 launch was in Paris... it makes sense to alternate with London : )

Interestingly, whenever Ocon outqualifies Alonso this year (and even 2021), the gap between Alpine & p1 is usually the smallest... So:

- it confirms you must do a perfect job to beat ALO in Q

- Ocon has a high performance ceiling. When he's fast he's really fast.

But when he's beaten by ALO, he's sometimes beaten by slower cars too.

One could say ALO extracts 95%-80% of the performance all the time, whether the car is balanced and nice to drive or not. While OCO can extract 97% when the car is great, but can also fall to 70% when the car is not as nice to him.

He needs more consistency and to do weekends like JED, SIL (race), SPI, HUN (qualy) SPA, & SUZ more often.

As for Gasly, it's impossible to predict how he will fare in 2023. He was very good at STR/AT, but (very) bad at RB... 
And was the AT Gasly much more competitive than the RB one because he improved a lot? or mostly because the car suited him better..?

Edited by Alburaq, 07 January 2023 - 07:23.

Regarding the team, there has been an important change at Alpine recently, but no media talks about it, except the good ones like AMuS: Alpine acquired a 'Virtual test track' 2 months ago; a super test bench that can accommodate the entire car including the PU and is coupled to a driver in the loop simulator, which is one of the many reasons reliability should be much better in the second year. The PU setups should be improved to. And only The top 3 teams had such a device in house. 

https://www.auto-mot...and-mittelfeld/

Edited by Alburaq, 07 January 2023 - 07:33.

This is the ATL unit?

You mean AVL? (ATL makes the fuel tanks). Yes it's probably from AVL. They are pioneers in full-car-test-beds-coupled-with-a-simulator. 
While Renault is pioneer in full-engine-test-beds-coupled-to-a-full-human 

Edited by Alburaq, 08 January 2023 - 08:52.

We all know that Ocon is not a top tier driver. 

Expecting Ocon to be a better driver of the two is like admitting to a defeat from the start.

Alpine can't push the top teams with two mediocre drivers. Something what Verstappen was doing in RBR during Mercedes domination, or Kubica in BMW and Renault, or Alonso in last year's Alpine.

Our only hope is that Gasly turns out to be really really good driver and that he can shine in this year's Alpine car...

Lan (not do) sur Twitter : "Pierre on track today for preseason testing https://t.co/kUqxTGpmQc" / Twitter

That looks like the 2021 or even older car. 

Edited by Anja, 12 February 2023 - 18:13.

That looks like the 2021 or even older car. 

Indeed. Its a 2020 car if Im not mistaken. If it was the 2023 car, I'd send the car to the gym per immediate effect. Looks overweight in that shot.

Erm...   

George Pikoulas sur Twitter : "@EngineMode11 @HSouthwellFE Yeah.. and it took us 1 day to set it up.. thank me later.. https://t.co/wcrKdfaNJ5" / Twitter

what is so funny? I don't get it

what is so funny? I don't get it

Well, it was somewhat over-the-top, IMHO. They clearly spent a lot of money, time and effort on their launch (for a car that had images in testing all over the Internet)... and what they need more than anything are on-track results.

As it looks (again IMHO), it makes them look more like a marketing tool than anything else.

Edited by FLB, 18 February 2023 - 20:08.

We all know that Ocon is not a top tier driver. 

 

Expecting Ocon to be a better driver of the two is like admitting to a defeat from the start.

 

Alpine can't push the top teams with two mediocre drivers. Something what Verstappen was doing in RBR during Mercedes domination, or Kubica in BMW and Renault, or Alonso in last year's Alpine.

 

Our only hope is that Gasly turns out to be really really good driver and that he can shine in this year's Alpine car...

Ocon is improving, and IMO he did 6 great GP's last season, GPs where he has seemingly drove the car near it's full potential (based on the Q laptime and the gap with P1 for example). So he can exploit the car at its maximum, but he needs to do that in a much more consistent basis.
So if he keeps improving, and doubles his tally of good GPs, and if Gasly does as many good GPs, then Alpine will have a good enough duo for now IMO.
It's not a far fetched scenario IMO : )

Well, it was somewhat over-the-top, IMHO. They clearly spent a lot of money, time and effort on their launch (for a car that had images in testing all over the Internet)... and what they need more than anything are on-track results.

 

 

As it looks (again IMHO), it makes them look more like a marketing tool than anything else.

maybe.. BUT IT WAS A FU**ING AWESOME PARTY https://twitter.com/...359943640096769

(just kidding, wasnt there)

Aïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïïeeeeeeeeee...   

Did Rossi hand Gasly a two-decade, multi-billion, utterly watertight contract?

Did Rossi hand Gasly a two-decade, multi-billion, utterly watertight contract?

Edited by Viryfan, 04 March 2023 - 17:22.

Edited by LeftRearTyre, 04 March 2023 - 17:18.

CANAL+ F1® sur Twitter : " "On va se focus sur demain" Pierre Gasly revient sur son élimination en Q1 #BahrainGP #F1 https://t.co/apYlm541Gd" / Twitter

Gasly: We'll focus on tomorrow

I have been a fan for the Renault team for 40 years and especially a big fan for Alpine cars.

Supporter in bad and good years, but enough is enough….With Rossi in charge (a toxic combination of arrogance and incompetence ) its stops here       

Which is why the French Twittersphere is (mostly) all up in arms about it, as Viryfan pointed out   
 
Alpine: Ocon has to make "better judgements" racing team-mate (autosport.com)

I have been a fan for the Renault team for 40 years and especially a big fan for Alpine cars.
Supporter in bad and good years, but enough is enough….With Rossi in charge (a toxic combination of arrogance and incompetence ) its stops here

Isn‘t that a copypasta?

No it’s about losing a two time world champion, losing a young driver because the legal team is as “good” as the rest, having a Renault academy driver like Zhou (who could open the Chinese market for Alpine) going to Alpha Romeo..