Alpine setting no targets for 2024 as ‘we must improve everywhere’ – Famin

Alpine team principal Bruno Famin is not setting any targets for their 2024 F1 season after embracing a new car design philosophy.

Famin took charge of the team last year, replacing Otmar Szafnauer as team principal. They also lost long-standing sporting director Alan Permane and technical director Pat Fry around the same time.

The team presented its new A524 at its Enstone base today. The car is a departure from last year’s design, and Alpine are prepared for the possibility it may take a few races to get the best from the package.

The team is also making extensive changes behind the scenes, said Famin, which may take time to pay off.

“There’s a lot of expectations, we are excited, for sure, it’s a brand new car, but to me there is no optimism,” he told media including RaceFans at today’s launch. “We know that the road is long.

“We know that we have a lot to do. We know where we want to go to fight in front. But we know that the road is long. We have a lot of things to improve everywhere across the company.”

The team entered last year hoping to close the gap to the top three teams, but ended up finishing in the bottom half of the championship standings.

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“We are fundamentally optimistic because we are not so bad even if ’23 was disappointing,” Famin continued. “And when I see everything which can be improved, I say okay, there is room for improvement. But we know where we are and we know that the field is closer and closer.”

Famin says he has decided on a clear path of recovery for the team. “We are all on the same road map. We have all the same mid-term goals and we know that as we are now in the third year of the regulation the cars will be closer and closer. Fighting for Q2 and Q3, it will be a matter of thousandths of a second and every single thing will be important.

“So no optimism, we are conscious of where we are and everything we need to improve. But we have a project, we have the budget, we have very talented people in Enstone and in Viry and the challenge is to give them the opportunity to use this talent to improve the car and to improve the car we need to improve the process, gaining agility, gaining efficiency.”

Having fallen short of its goal last year, Famin said the team is “not going to set any objective” for the year ahead other than to raise its level of performance. “For me a good 2024 season will be a season where we will be able to see improvement.

“Where I say improvement I’m not taking only about [on] the track. Of course, being able to seize any opportunity on the track to achieve a good result like we did even if the overall result was bad last year, our drivers knew to seize the opportunity and it was good, we need to do that more often.

“But even more than that is making improvement in the way we work. at the factories, developing our process, developing our people, building a machine able to develop a winning Formula 1 [car]. And that’s really the goal. We need to make a step that way in ’24 and that will be a successful season to me.”

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