The Meo: Alpine needs another year to get it right

After four rounds of the season, the Alpine F1 team is sixth in the Constructors’ Championship with 22 points, almost all earned by Esteban Okon. Fernando Alonso is not lucky yet, although it is clear that he is not inferior to his partner in terms of speed, because they score equal in qualifying matches.

Without equipment failures and other issues haunting the two-time world champion, the team would have had a lot more points. The management of the team sees this and shows no special alarm signals.

“It is too early to draw conclusions, but certain observations are valid. First of all, there is no doubt that the new engine works efficiently,” said Renault CEO Luca de Meo in an interview with Corriere della Sera. “When it comes to chassis and aerodynamics, our engineers say they are based on flexible concepts. This means we may have more serious potential to refine the car than other teams that relied on more extreme approaches.

We have more room to modernize our fleet, both thanks to our more efficient business structure and access to resources. We have invited specialists such as Otmar Szafnauer, Bruno Famin and Pat Fry to the team or appointed them to senior positions. According to my calculations, it will take another year for everything to fall into place.

We didn’t say we’re going to claim 3rd place in the Constructors’ Championship already, it was invented by others. Personally, I don’t trust people who commit to talking about the conditions under which they are going to win the championship.

The first two years should be spent making sure that all elements are properly formed. This work is gradual, step by step, and at some point everything starts to work. This seems to be what is happening with Ferrari at the moment. And in 2014 Mercedes did it, because at that time this team gained an advantage, because they started preparing for the transition to the new technical regulations two years earlier than the rest.

From the point of view of the executive director of the Renault group, normal relations have developed between the Alpine F1 racers: “In Imola, we had only one modernized bottom, and instead of installing it on Esteban Ocon’s car, we gave him to Fernando, who has had no luck so far. Esteban and Fernando developed an excellent relationship last year, comparable to the classic mentor-student relationship. There is still an open exchange of information between them. We do not think it is right to have a #1 driver and a #2 driver on the team.”

Luca de Meo also touched on the staffing situation in Alpine F1, with which the promising Australian Oscar Piastri works as a reserve driver: “He doesn’t play for our team, because we don’t have three cars.”