The French Alpine team presented Monday, February 21 in Paris the single-seater called “A522”, mostly blue and now slightly pink, which the Spaniard Fernando Alonso and the French Esteban Ocon will pilot this season in Formula 1. It is with this single-seater that Alpine will aim “at least 5th place”.
“Through rose-colored glasses”. It is with these words that the CEO of Renault, Luca de Meo, unveiled at the Palais de Tokyo the new F1 Alpine which will be adorned with a little pink, the color of its new title sponsor BWT. Testifying even more strongly to the Austrian water treatment group, the Alpine livery will be almost entirely pink during the first two Grands Prix of the season, in Bahrain (March 20) then in Saudi Arabia (March 27).
Presenting your #A522#A522Launch pic.twitter.com/2uoK5nv1ow
— BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) February 21, 2022
Former long-time partner of Force India and then of Racing Point (now Aston Martin), BWT is following the same path as the former managing director of Aston Martin, the American Otmar Szafnauer, new director of the Alpine team. The team experienced major changes in management at the start of 2021, under the leadership of Alpine president Laurent Rossi, with the departure of its executive directors Marcin Budkowski and non-executive directors, former driver Alain Prost.
Will these changes put Alpine on the highway of great victories, currently reserved for Mercedes and Red Bull, as its management wishes before 2024? The first answers will come this week with the first laps of the A522. The single-seater will be released in Barcelona on Tuesday for the purposes of a private promotional run. From Wednesday to Friday, the first three days of official pre-season testing will follow on this same Barcelona-Catalonia circuit, before three other days scheduled in Bahrain (March 10-12).
Alpine is the 9th team out of 10 to present the 2022 version of its single-seaters, with completely revised aerodynamics. This season, F1 is introducing new regulations that are supposed to make it easier for cars to follow and overtake each other, promising more spectacle.
“If I came back to F1 it’s for these changes, attractive on paper because normally we will be able to follow each other more closely, there will be more action in the race”explained the double world champion (2005, 2006) Fernando Alonso, returned to F1 last season at 40 years old.
“We will almost start from scratch, we have zero experience with a car with such a concept, a car with tires like that [plus gros avec un diamètre de 18 pouces contre 13 auparavant]we have a lot to learn, Fernando and I, from these tests in Barcelona”noted Esteban Ocon.