2023 championship position: 6th, 120 points
Speedcafe’s 2024 championship prediction: 7th
It was a turbulent year for Team Enstone in 2023 from the arrival of a new driver in Pierre Gasly to the departure of two leading management figures mid-season.
Through it all, Alpine delivered sixth place in the constructors’ championship with two podiums.
However, offsetting those high watermark results were performances where the team was invisible.
For what remains Renault’s factory team, regardless of how it may be branded, it wasn’t good enough. That’s why Otmar Szafnauer and Alan Permane parted ways with the team, the latter after 34 years of employment.
The reason for their exits was a mismatch between Renault’s desire to deliver results within a given timeframe and Szafnauer’s and Permane’s belief that it was unrealistic.
The duo believed the rebuilding process is going to take longer which created tension, if not conflict, with management above them in the Renault structure. As a result, the Belgian GP was their last as Bruno Famin stepped in to head the operation.
When Ocon won the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix, then-CEO Laurent Rossi outlined the team’s 100-race plan to be contenders once more.
The season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix will be the 57th race since Ocon’s success, and it’s fair to say the team has not progressed.
Worse, it’s been something of a revolving door with Fernando Alonso opting to head to Aston Martin, Oscar Piastri switching to McLaren without ever racing for the squad, and then the demise of Szafnauer and Permane.
That turmoil has happened since mid-2022 and hardly makes for a strong foundation when building a team, while the instability is hardly the sort of thing that empowers and enthuses the workforce.
And we only need to look at last year’s championship results to see that it slipped from fourth best in ’22 to sixth.
Given teams around it in the highly competitive midfield have remained stable and made strong development strides, the task ahead of those at Alpine is even greater.
Add AlphaTauri RB, a team Red Bull seems to finally be taking seriously, and the competition in the middle of the pack becomes even more intense.
For that reason, Alpine is at risk of slipping further behind – not because it will necessarily get worse, but because others will get better.
The old saying in motorsport goes, if you’re standing still, you’re going backwards.
For Ocon and Gasly, it will be an important season as both are understood to be out of contract at year’s end.
Do they opt to hang around in the hope Rossi’s 100 race plan is delivered on, or do they look for new pastures? Many drivers are soon out of contract, making the silly season this year likely to be especially active.
To retain high-quality drivers, Alpine must demonstrate that it can provide a car capable of good results and evidence of it being on schedule to move up the grid.
That is what Aston Martin has done in recent years, emerging from the ashes of what was Force India.
It’s possible, but it’s a big ask and takes time.
The dust still hasn’t really settled from last season’s upheaval and so can we really expect the team to deliver at its very best?
As a result, it’s likely Alpine will slip a little further backwards before making any meaningful progress forwards.
Discussion about this post