The French team, which remains on a very difficult weekend in Baku, has not yet launched its season, after four races.
Gray mine for the Blues of F1. Sixth in the constructors’ standings, eighth place as the best race result, the French Alpine team is having a very average start to the 2023 championship. In Miami, for the fifth round of the season (Grand Prix Sunday at 9:30 p.m.), the team will want to relaunch and prove that it can aim higher.
The last race weekend in Azerbaijan was particularly difficult for the French team, with engine problems and alerts from the first free practice session. After an exit from the track in sprint qualifying synonymous with the back of the grid for Pierre Gasly, and a start from the pit lane after breaking the parc fermé rules for Esteban Ocon, the two Normans finished the race out of the points. “We want to quickly turn the page on this very frustrating weekend for all of us in the team”reacted Pierre Gasly to the media after the race.
Worst start to the season since 2017
A weekend like Alpine’s complicated start to the season. With eight points gleaned from four races, the team is off to its worst start since 2017 (6 points). “Their start to the season is unreadable […] It’s a little complicated for them to know where they stand.”believes Cyril Abiteboul, former boss of the Renault team between 2016 and 2020. “We see very good things at times, a car capable of setting good lap times. And at the same time, we also see hiccups, operational difficulties.” Capable of being in fifth position at the restart one lap from the checkered flag in Melbourne, and of catching fire during the first and only free practice session in Baku, the Alpine A523 does not yet know its real level.
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The fault, in part, to the gaps which have narrowed considerably in the peloton. “It’s a season where the gaps are historically tight, we’ve never seen such a competitive season”, decrypts Cyril Abiteboul. In this situation, small deviations and small errors quickly become very expensive. And the French team accused a lot of bad luck, with an abandonment of Esteban Ocon in opening in Bahrain, an unfortunate double accident in Australia, and the difficult experience of Baku.
With such small gaps, the pressure is on the drivers. “It becomes a championship that puts the driver first, as the gaps between the cars are much smaller […] All of this means that the absolute precision of piloting becomes fundamental”, explains the former team boss. Especially since in this mix, Pierre Gasly must also get used to a new environment, where the two pilots were projected as figures of a 100% French project. Among the good news, they can still count on a single-seater that seems efficient. “I don’t feel like it’s a badly born car […] Their communication is not focused on the basic problems of the car”notes Cyril Abiteboul.
“Everything goes very quickly in both directions”
Thus, there is no question of panicking in the tricolor ranks. “I don’t think there’s anything sinister going on […] There’s no underlying issue or anything like that, that’s for sure.”assured sports director Alan Permane after the race in Baku. “Everything goes very quickly in both directions”explains Cyril Abiteboul. “We went from the expected P5 in Melbourne to the final places out of the points in Baku, everything is a bit extreme. The truth is probably somewhere in between.”
With this direct connection to another race weekend on the other side of the world, Alpine already has the opportunity to put this difficult start to the season behind it, and to move forward. “Putting all that behind and switching to a normal weekend is the best thing that could have happened to them.”says Cyril Abiteboul. First elements of response during the first laps on the Miami International Autodrome, from Friday.