Alfa Romeo will launch its car for the 2021 F1 season in the Polish capital Warsaw, home to its title sponsor Orlen.
The car will be unveiled on February 22nd, over two weeks before pre-season testing begins in Bahrain on March 12th. Further details of the exact timing of the launch will be confirmed later, said the team.While last year’s car carried the chassis designation C39, its replacement will be known as the C41.
Orlen-backed driver Robert Kubica, who joined the team from Williams last year, is expected to remain as Alfa Romeo’s test and reserve driver for the new season. He made five appearances in first practice sessions for the team last year, at the Styrian, Hungarian, 70th Anniversary, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi grands prix.
Alfa Romeo placed eighth in the 2020 constructors championship. Race drivers Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi have been retained for the new season. Following the postponement of the Australian Grand Prix, the championship is due to begin with the Bahrain Grand Prix on March 28th.
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Aapje (@aapje)
20th January 2021, 9:58
Apparently, C40 is their name for the car that adheres to the new technical regulations, which have been postponed until 2022. This is why they skipped ahead to C41.
Retired (@jeff1s)
20th January 2021, 10:42
That somehow explains it, but will they go C39, C41, C40 then?
The good news is they intend to launch the car properly and not on a laggy webstream.
Orlen is the largest company in Central and Eastern Europe, trading oil and gas.
Aapje (@aapje)
20th January 2021, 12:07
@jeff1s
I expect them to use C42 for next year.
It’s actually a pretty common issue in IT, where it also regularly happens that two or more future versions are already in development, or at least, referred to in all kinds of documentation. Then if the decision is made to skip a version, you can’t just rename the version after that, without causing a ton of confusion about what feature is slated for what version.
A common solution is to have nicknames for versions, which is separate from the official release name. For example, current MacOS has the version number 11, but was internally called Big Sur. If they had decided to not release that version, they could give a different version of MacOS the official number 11, without any confusion, because Apple would not use that number internally, but a different nickname.
Patrick (@paeschli)
20th January 2021, 13:43
I would go for the Sauber CXL to substitute for the 2022 Sauber C40 name then, given XL is Latin for 40.
They can then use C42 for 2023.
Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
20th January 2021, 11:51
Thanks. What will they name their 2023 car?
Aapje (@aapje)
20th January 2021, 12:11
@peartree
I can only speculate based on how these things normally go, which is skipping the version permanently, so C42.
It’s typically not considered desirable to imply that you are going backwards, from a marketing perspective.
GeeMac (@geemac)
20th January 2021, 11:03
Good to see Orlen getting value for their Zlotys.
BasCB (@bascb)
20th January 2021, 12:02
They probably have to pay that in hard Euros or in USD though @geemac!
GeeMac (@geemac)
20th January 2021, 12:59
You know what I mean @bascb… :)
BasCB (@bascb)
20th January 2021, 13:59
;-)
Maisch (@maisch)
20th January 2021, 12:55
Sauber at least have a reserve driver that could actually drive the car if needed at a decent pace. In general it seems like a very watered down role today, the only point of it is for the CV, just call Hulkenberg when they are in deep trouble and need a driver :)
Retired (@jeff1s)
20th January 2021, 14:32
It’s rather awkward that the driver that is making the team afloat with sponsorship is in fact not driving.
Louis (@louis)
20th January 2021, 14:40
For those who are interested, the C in the name of the car traces back to the Sauber days of the team; the C stands for Christiane, name of Peter Sauber’s wife
Antybuc
30th January 2021, 15:14
Cool. Didn’t know that.