Alpine F1: The policy of small steps

Alpine F1 battles McLaren for 4th place in the Constructors’ Championship, but there is also a rivalry between two different ideologies in the clash between the two teams. If in Woking, when modernizing cars, they rely on the introduction of whole complexes of technical innovations, then in the factory team of the Renault car group they prefer a policy of small steps.

McLaren and Alpine cannot yet compete with the top teams, but both claim to be “the best of the rest”, ie they confidently lead a group of second-rate teams that also include Alfa Romeo, Haas, AlphaTauri, Aston Martin and Williams. At the same time, the score between them is almost even: after 13 stages of the season, Alpine is in 4th place in the Constructors’ Championship with a lead of only four points.

McLaren has been preparing a pretty serious set of updates for the May round in Barcelona, ​​after which little changed in the MCL36 until the French Grand Prix. While this doesn’t mean the Woking team hasn’t upgraded the car between these phases, the difference in approach between McLaren and Alpine is quite noticeable. The team’s technical department, led by Pat Fry, has prepared some new items for each Grand Prix.

Immediately after pre-season testing in the first leg in Bahrain, the A522 received new side pontoons, a bottom and a rear wing, which was again upgraded for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The team brought a different version of the bottom, new deflectors and brake lines to Australia, and new rear brake channels were added in Miami.

Even before that, in Imola, the bottom was again modernized, as well as an additional rear wing. In Spain updates include front fender end plates and rear brakes.

Except in Monaco there were no changes except for certain steering changes, but when preparing cars for a race on a street circuit with its tight turns, all teams do this.

After that, the modernization process of the A522 continued: in Baku, an improved front wing, side pontoons and rear wing were presented. For Silverstone, the front suspension, bottom, side pontoons and hood were modernized, for Canada – an additional rear wing, for Austria – the main rear wing, for France – the bottom, for Hungary an additional rear wing was subjected to another modernization.

Most visually striking were the changes presented in the Azerbaijani stage of the championship and at Silverstone, after which the side pontoons of the A522 began to resemble similar components of Ferrari and Red Bull Racing cars at the same time.

The policy of small steps has its advantages: Enstone believes it is easier to analyze changes in car behaviour, to track exactly what has improved, what has worked and what has not. At the same time, minor innovations are a bit easier to integrate into the machine’s design, so Alpine intends to continue with this approach.

“Whether the upgrades are big or small, once they are completed in the wind tunnel and these components are produced, we implement them immediately,” confirms Alan Permane, Alpine F1 sporting director.

“To sum up, with small steps to modernize the car, we were able to make good progress,” team leader Otmar Safnauer developed his idea. – The first races after the summer break will be fundamental for our confrontation with McLaren. It will not be easy for our teams to move to building a 2023 car as both Alpine and McLaren compete for 4th place in the Constructors’ Championship.”

Some rivals look at Alpine with amazement: how does the team manage to stay on a budget and not spend too much?

In Enstone they invariably answer that this is possible thanks to the efficiency of all work processes. Part of the reason for this is the fact that Alpine is a works team and builds both the chassis and powertrain in-house. So far, however, she can really only claim 4th place in the Constructors’ Championship as she is inferior to Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes in almost every way.