Alpine making “huge effort” to stockpile spare parts during break before Baku

2023 Australian Grand Prix

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Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer says the team will use the unplanned break between F1 rounds to stock up on spare parts.

Last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix was originally due to be followed by the Chinese Grand Prix on April 16th, before that was cancelled. F1 announced in December the Covid-19 situation in the country prevented a return this year.

In January F1 confirmed China’s race would not be replaced, leaving three consecutive weekends in April without a race. Speaking ahead of Sunday’s grand prix, Szafnauer said that period would be a valuable opportunity for the team to produce all the spares it needs.

“The break wasn’t planned but it is a welcome break for both getting ample car parts and spares, as well as when we bring developments. There’s a huge effort to make enough of those parts to ensure that you can really push hard – so that definitely helps.”

Alpine’s drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly subsequently retired from Sunday’s race when they collided during the final standing restart, damaging both A523s and putting greater strain on the team’s supply of spare parts.

Szafnauer said the team needs to ensure it has a plentiful supply of spares for the next round in Baku. The high-speed street circuit has seen several heavy impacts in recent seasons, and the risk of cars being damaged will grow this year due to the addition of a sprint race.

“There is more jeopardy because it’s a street race and some of the walls are pretty close,” said Szafnauer. “Like I said the nice thing is we’ve got this three-week break to make some spares in order to be prepared for both the sprint race and the race in Baku. Hopefully it’ll all be okay and we won’t suffer in Miami.”

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Alpine will also use the long gap between races to press on with their development programme for the A523, said Szafnauer. “The break allows you to plan further upgrades that you find through your simulation tools, and knowing that the break is there, you plan them a bit differently – but it definitely helps,” he said.

McLaren, the team’s closest rival throughout last season, also plans to bring significant upgrades to its car over the coming races but Szafnauer is confident Alpine will remain competitive.

“We too have a decent-size upgrade coming for Baku and then a little bit more only a week later in Miami, so we continue to push the upgrades out,” he said.

“The important thing is that they all work when we put them on the car and we have good correlation with our simulation tools. We had good correlation last year and if that continues and if we continue to push the upgrades, we’ll take that development fight over the season to the others around us.”

Pictures: Alpine drivers collide in Melbourne

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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17 comments on “Alpine making “huge effort” to stockpile spare parts during break before Baku”

  1. vs expectations they are the team that will need most

  2. Are the team that should go to China now back at the factory now making spares?

    There’s no correlation between a race being cancelled and the teams ability to make new parts is there?

    1. More time, less personal needed for shipping etc .

  3. I guess it just means they have the time to create two races worth of spares. Does the trackside team run parts production when not at races – you’d think parts production wouldn’t travel? Is more budget freed up to support more production with one less race? Or did the cap get adjusted when the total number of races was reduced by one?

    I lose track nowadays as the rules seem to change by the race!

    1. That’s a fantastic set of questions Mark ;)

  4. I get the feeling that he’s suggesting his drivers are likely to inflict more damage on their cars over the next couple of races.

  5. HaveIbeenBanned
    6th April 2023, 10:25

    I get the feeling he’s worried that his drivers will continue to inflict more damage on their cars during the next two races.

  6. McLaren have had a pretty awful start to the year and they openly admitted their car wasn’t good enough and as such they had revised their strategy to bring a big upgrade early in the season yet here we are 3 races in and they’re ahead of Alpine and snipping at the heels of Ferrari on points. When will Alpine actually ever get a season right, they should be pushing for wins as a goal, not languishing fighting for the final points. Doesn’t matter how good your correlation to simulations are if you’re designing parts 2% slower than those ahead of you. That’s not going to bridge the gap.

    1. Jonathan Parkin
      6th April 2023, 13:17

      However it should be pointed out that they still do manage to finish at least once in the Top 6, even if their competitiveness dips. Williams on the other hand their primary rival in the 80’s and 90’s haven’t. There has been at least six or seven seasons where they haven’t managed a top six finish, which would mean no points whatsoever in the 1991-2002 scoring system

  7. Ocon could have just backed up a wheel’s length and Alpine would be ok on spare parts.

    There’s no denying that Gasly was sliding off shape, by it looked to me the crash was avoidable. Similar to that Brazil incident with Verstappen when Ocon was one lap down and could have finished the job on the next straight.

    He behaved just the same against Alonso. Trying too hard to stablish his dominance, IMO.

    1. Very likely that Alpine will need lots of parts this season.
      In the most recent “incident”, while Gasly may have been quick to apologize, it brings to mind the common theme in many road car accident reports … “this collision could have been avoided by either driver”.

  8. I’d be surprised if there isn’t a lot of car damage in Baku this year because of the sprint gimmick format.

    Hopefully nobody gets hurt thanks to the show over sport sprint gimmick as has been happening in moto gp.

  9. Good contingency planning on the part of Alpine. Other teams would be working on similar, most probably

    1. Good contingency planning on the part of Alpine. Other teams would be working on similar, most probably

      Working on whatever they feel they need would be normal for all teams.
      With Ocon and Gasly in the same team that would be the output of two factories, and they only have one.

  10. Very likely that Alpine will need lots of parts this season.
    In the most recent “incident”, while Gasly may have been quick to apologize, it brings to mind the common theme in many road car accident reports … “this collision could have been avoided by either driver”.

  11. With one of the dullest and most wrratic drivers (Gasly) and most of the stubborn drivers (Ocon), I am not surprised. What idiocy it was to put these two together in the first place, especially since Gasly is nothing even close to special.

  12. Lewisham Milton
    7th April 2023, 20:27

    Won’t be needing the pink bits again.

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