Alfa Romeo Team Representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi has revealed it will construct a “completely new car” for 2024 to resolve its current limitations.
Having only amassed four points in the last 13 rounds of 2022, Alfa Romeo’s plight has continued into this year with the team only scoring 16 points with two races remaining.
Despite its two drivers recently progressing into Q3 in Mexico, neither Valtteri Bottas nor Guanyu Zhou, both contracted for 2024, ended up converting that into a top-10 finish.
Alunni Bravi accepts that Alfa Romeo’s C43 challenger has been unable to replicate speed across both qualifying and the race regularly enough during the campaign.
“We simply miss some performance during the race,” he acknowledged in Brazil. “We need to investigate and to understand this, because this has been a recurring problem during this season, where we have been alternatively quick in qualifying and the race and vice versa.
“So, this is part of the analysis that we need to do, and where we need to go through the car understanding for next season, because I don’t think that this situation will change if we are not able to fix, with proper technical solutions, this problem.”
“It’s not a matter of car balance, it’s the overall package that we need to improve,” he added. “We are lacking grip, especially in high-speed corners. This has been one of our weakness points this season.”
The Sauber-owned team will part ways with title sponsor Alfa Romeo at the end of this season ahead of its transition into a works Audi entry from the 2026 campaign.
Sauber CEO Andreas Seidl has hired a new technical director in the form of ex-McLaren colleague James Key, who was axed by the Woking-based camp earlier this year.
The Hinwil-based squad are hopeful that the arrival of Key, who previously worked for Sauber between 2010-12, can inspire an upturn with work on a revised car concept.
“First of all, we are really happy about having James on board,” Alunni Bravi stated. “He started the first week of September, so he’s also contributing to next year’s car, to our C44 car.
“We reviewed completely the project together with him. Thanks to his experience we went through an in-depth analysis of all the areas of the car, taking decisions.
“So next year’s car will not be an evolution of this year’s car, because we think that there are some limits in this concept that we cannot exploit further.
“We will really have as completely new car from chassis to suspension, everything, all the areas. Of course, it’s easy to identify the problems, but then you need to be able to fix it.
“So we are working hard, the group is growing. We have new appointments that are joining, and that will be able to contribute also to next year’s car but the answer will be given to all of us next year in Bahrain.”
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