Alpine have become the fourth Formula 1 team to announce the launch plans for their 2023 car. They will present the new A523 on February 16th.
The launch will take place in London. It will be Alpine’s third F1 car since the rebranding of the Renault team ahead of the 2021 season, when it took on the name of its sister sports car brand.The French-owned, British-based team rose to fourth place in the constructors’ championship last year, despite failing to repeat the win they scored in 2021. Their best result was only a fourth place, achieved by Esteban Ocon at the Japanese Grand Prix, but they scored in 19 races out of 22 and had both cars finish in the points on 11 occasions.
Ocon will be partnered this season by Pierre Gasly, who joins the team from AlphaTauri after Fernando Alonso left for Aston Martin.
There will however be continuity in the management of Alpine this year, with several changes to how the team is run having been made since it became Alpine. Otmar Sazfnauer will continue to be team principal, and is now one of the longest serving in F1 despite only starting his job in February 2022, while Pat Fry is chief technical officer and Matt Harman is technical director.
The team is yet to announce who their reserve driver will be. Oscar Piastri was initially expected to continue in role before he was offered a race seat as the replacement of Alonso. However he rejected that seat and left for McLaren, who he will now make his F1 debut with.
Instead, Piastri’s fellow Australian Jack Doohan is the leading contender to be Alpine reserve. The Formula 2 racer has already tested with the team and appeared in an F1 practice session, and is part of the Alpine Academy.
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ajpennypacker (@ajpennypacker)
4th January 2023, 18:42
There is probably no team that more people want to see perform poorly than Alpine. The most unpopular team boss, the most dislikable CEO, with one of the most disliked drivers in Ocon, and a prima donna in the other seat.
I can’t wait to watch this unfold.
S
5th January 2023, 5:26
I reckon Mercedes and Red Bull would be candidates too….
Alpine is a very easy team to feel indifferent about.
BasCB (@bascb)
5th January 2023, 11:27
Yeah, I see things more like “S” mentions rather than seeing much reason to feel bad about Alpine @ajpennypacker
Red Bull, is a great team but the way they operate, statements by Marko, by Horner and by their drivers brings a lot of disagreement. Mercedes has been winning too much for a boatload of people in recent years, and there is a sizeable dislike for their top driver. Ferrari has been lower on that “chart” but they have a decent amount of detractors too over the years. And Aston Martin attracts such feelings over their no. 1 driver and his father and Alonso has been a divisive figure between fans for some time now, which will add to what is already there at the team.
Haas has attracted fans, but at the same time some really dislike the team. At least it attracts emotions. I think the team that is seen negatively the least is probably Williams, since many fans still feel some nostalgia for their glory days and the team hasn’t done anything to antagonize people in recent years (and dropping their pay driver will help them too).
S
5th January 2023, 12:00
Don’t forget the team boss too…
Another big plus for Williams being that they were genuinely a racing team – a family team, no less – and not just some huge, faceless corporation participating primarily to advertise themselves.
MichaelN
5th January 2023, 10:27
It’s pretty much a given that they’ll perform poorly, in that they won’t be fighting for wins and the title.
Given the comments among some parts of the F1 viewership, it seems a lot more people begrudge Red Bull and Mercedes their success. Not so much Ferrari. As Vettel astutely observed, everyone who likes F1 also likes Ferrari (at some level).
S
5th January 2023, 11:34
Ferrari hasn’t had much success to begrudge of late….
Vettel’s assessment may be correct – I neither like nor dislike Ferrari, but then I can’t say I like F1 either.
Qeki (@qeki)
4th January 2023, 19:43
Last french team with full french lineup was Larrousse in 1995?
GeeMac (@geemac)
5th January 2023, 4:35
@qeki Larrouse folded in 1994 with a Swiss/Japanese driver lineup.
The last French team was Prost and they never had an all Franch driver lineup.
So, the last French team I can think of with an all-French driver lineup would have been Ligier at the 1994 Australian Grand Prix (Panis/Lagorce).
Qeki (@qeki)
5th January 2023, 16:11
@geemac Thanks for clarifing it!