Alpine unhindered by cost cap in battle with McLaren, says Szafnauer

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In the round-up: Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer says the team will be able to keep adding upgrades to their car without reaching difficulties with the budget cap

In brief

Alpine unhindered by cost cap in battle with McLaren, says Szafnauer

Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer says the team will be able to keep adding upgrades to their car without reaching difficulties with the budget cap.

Alpine are locked in a battle with McLaren over fourth place in the constructors championship, currently holding an advantage of four points after Lando Norris finished directly ahead of both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon at the latest grand prix in Hungary.

“They’ve definitely made a step,” Szafnauer admitted. “We had headroom under the cost cap. So there is no cost cap considerations stopping us from bringing upgrades.

“Whenever we found something, we would make it in quantities and bring it. Especially if it was additive – you didn’t have to throw stuff out to replace. And that’s still the case, so we’ll have something in Spa.”

Da Costa moves to Porsche for 2023 Formula E season

Antonio Felix Da Costa has confirmed he will move to Porsche for next year’s Formula E championship and the new Gen3 era.

Former Formula E champion Da Costa confirmed yesterday that he will move from Techeetah to Porsche for next year, stepping into a seat previously occupied by Andre Lotterer.

Newly crowned world champion Stoffel Vandoorne has not formally confirmed which team he will be racing with for 2023, but stated that he would return to Formula E to defend his title. It is expected he will join DS Penske for the first year of the Gen3 era.

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Comment of the day

Mick Schumacher has picked up form as his second season in Formula 1 has progressed, but has it been enough for Haas to consider extending him for a third year? @Jens isn’t so sure…

Mick has finished races ahead of Magnussen, but never on merit. Reliability, poor strategy, reduced engine mode to just make it home, the black and orange flags mentioned in the article, etc. have been reasons each time Mick has finished ahead.

As for the 11-2 qualifying results…
In Australia where Mick qualified ahead of Kevin, Stroll had a big crash in the end of Q1, and Kevin was caught in traffic when they resumed.
In Miami, the other instance where Mick qualified ahead, Kevin’s radio didn’t work, and they did one long run instead of the usual two shorts, as they couldn’t communicate about when to come in.

Mick has never really shown anything. Yes he had a bad car last year, but so did Kevin and Grosjean in 2020 and they both made a point scoring finish. He has crashed two cars big time this year (and last year too). He hasn’t finished ahead on merit. And he is lucky the qualifying result isn’t 13-0.

Why so many think Mick should be retained, whereas many think Riccardo with a lot more and a lot better results to show should stop, I cannot understand. There must be a lot of “Schumacher name momentum” for many.
jenc

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Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

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19 comments on “Alpine unhindered by cost cap in battle with McLaren, says Szafnauer”

  1. Lovely CotD there. Thing is, Kevin got those flags because he went in far too agressive. And that is pretty inherent in his approach to racing, it’s been part of most of his driving career. Sometimes it works for him, often it doesn’t. Some fans love it and are willing to go along with his excuses for it, some see it as an own goal.

    I guess we know what @jens feels about those. I guess we disagree on that view.

    Schumacher hasn’t been starring, but he did get some decent drives in recently, solidly bringing it home where Magnussen tried to get too much, too soon and ended up ruining his own race.

    1. Schumacher jr will be in a good car in the future unless he will crash in every race. Then we will see how he really drives. His name will take him up to the grid but that is where he really needs to put those results together. It is same situation as in any working place. You know someone whose child comes to work and all the colleagues start to rememeber how “your father was young and started working here before you were even born” Still name will help you but you have to do the job yourself

  2. Why so many think Mick should be retained, whereas many think Riccardo with a lot more and a lot better results to show should stop, I cannot understand.

    The consideration/suggestion if/when to stop in F1 is totally different in both cases due to time in the sport and performance trajectory.

    But for Haas the consideration who to hire is quite different. Maybe due to DtS is Ricciardo now better known in the US than the Schumacher surname, and could he be a good fit with Haas Team USA ;)

  3. Bottas seemingly enjoys Colorado these days as he also went in that state post-Miami GP weekend before returning to Europe.
    However, despite the location being in the US, I’m surprised he referred to competitive distances in miles rather than km, even though he’s not only accustomed to metrics from having grown up in metrics country but also only ever lived in metrics countries.

    Just because Ralf says so, doesn’t mean Ricciardo couldn’t continue racing in F1 in another team.
    I’m entirely confident he could make a Team Enstone return if/when Piastri moves to Mclaren rather than becomes a regular driver within Alpine (still possible via court outcome).

    Who’d want a (pricy) scale model of a tainted championship-winning car?

    COTD is interesting, especially the last paragraph.

    1. However, despite the location being in the US, I’m surprised he referred to competitive distances in miles rather than km

      Not sure what’s so weird about it; it’s even best practice.
      The race is over 60 miles, so you call it a 60mile race.

      In the US they refer to the 100m sprint (or ‘dash’) as 100m rather than 109yards-and-1foot-and-1inch dash.
      But that might be due to the fact that pronouncing this would take longer than a typical race ;)

      1. Right, while it’s usually better to use the global standards rather than regional systems, if the event is based on such a measurement it makes sense to use that. Nobody calls it the Indy 804 either, after all!

        1. Right, while it’s usually better to use the global standards rather than regional systems,

          After a fashion, but you do have to wonder why a unit value “metre” is given an alternate spelling in the USA.

          Nobody calls it the Indy 804 either, after all!

          Maybe the Europeans should in response to the US misspelling of metre? :)

  4. You can now buy a £7k scale model of Max Verstappen’s championship-winning F1 car (Top Gear)

    Uh?? He hasn’t won yet.

    1. You keep telling yourself that.

      1. You keep telling yourself that.

        Leaving aside the need to step into an alternate reality, where Ferrari have a clue about strategy, it is possible for Leclerc to win.
        It’s also mathematically possible for any driver on the grid to win.

        But I do take your point, Ferrari don’t have said clue, so Max is almost certain of a title.

        1. Wow. It must really suck to feel the need to block out last year’s result from your own reality…

          1. Wow. It must really suck to feel the need to block out last year’s result from your own reality

            You don’t think Max cares whether a good part of the world has the evidence that the last event of the 2021 season was void due to mismanagement of the event by the race director? and that since the event in question was a title decider, there was no valid decision on the title?

            All those comments of 2021* must niggle, even if he says they don’t.
            Allow the guy to win a title without said mismanagement, and he can claim the title without contradiction.
            It’s theoretically possible for Leclerc to win, but “Ferrari”…

  5. Does the Amalgam model come with Masi’s autograph?

  6. I suppose the key difference with Mick is he’s in his 2nd F1 season up against an experienced teammate. Ricciardo is in the twilight of his career getting flattened by his less experienced teammate. Of course Mick needs to show improvement soon but it’s not surprising to see him behind Magnussen. Most would have expected Ricciardo to be ahead of Norris on the balance of things.

    1. Most would have expected Ricciardo to be ahead of Norris on the balance of things.

      Not necessarily.
      Depends on how much you know about and understand the relationship between driver and car.
      And how the team feel about their two drivers….

  7. I’d say that Verstappen model would’ve been better with the race winning soft tyres.

  8. Rather like Jacques Villeneuve, I wish Ralf Schumacher would shut up.

  9. Why so many think Mick should be retained, whereas many think Riccardo with a lot more and a lot better results to show should stop, I cannot understand.

    I guess the difference is that Mick is still young in his career & has shown enough speed in both his junior career & F1 for many to feel that he can grow into a front running driver as he gains more experience & gets into better equipment.

    Meanwhile we know what Riccardo is capable of. He’s won races & been competitive in the same team up against 2 world champions (Vettel & Verstappen) & so his form in more recent years is more disappointing because he simply isn’t performing at the level we know he can.

  10. This years’ motogp British GP was an attendance disaster and apparently also a ratings disaster. Is it the Vale effect? Bikes are generally strong in the UK.

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