Alpine Technical Director Matt Harman has admitted the team strived to “push the limits” when it came to overhauling its car concept for the 2024 Formula 1 season.
The Enstone squad had entered the previous season bidding to consolidate the fourth place it secured under the first year of the current ground effect regulations in 2022.
However, Alpine encountered a troubled campaign last term, slumping to a lonely sixth place in the Constructors’ standings, behind both Aston Martin and McLaren.
After hitting a development ceiling with its previous philosophy, Harman revealed at the end of last year that Alpine was pressing ahead with making vast changes for 2024.
Harman has reiterated that Alpine’s 2024 challenger has been renovated “front to back” to address the narrow operating window that existed within its predecessor.
“There are many big changes on the A524, our challenger for the 2024 season,” Harman said. “We maxed out the potential on the A523 and so the A524 is completely new from front to back.
“We rigorously analysed the key aerodynamic concepts that we wanted to move towards on this car to explore more aerodynamic freedom and better unlock these concepts to their full potential.
“We found with the A523 that it was operating within a very narrow window. This was a weakness as it meant we were limited on what we could exploit with the car and there were very specific characteristics on where it thrived and where it did not.
“Therefore, for the A524, we aim to broaden this window as much as we can to give ourselves a better opportunity of maximising its potential.”
Expanding on the alterations made from the A523, Harman has explained how Alpine should be prepared to have greater room for development across the campaign with the choices it has made over the recent winter.
“We have completely redesigned the chassis, we have a new rear suspension system, optimised the front suspension and integrated a new heat rejection system to give us capacity to operate more efficiently at each event,” the British engineer detailed.
“In addition, we have completed a lot of work on our brake system, in particular on the thermal management of the brakes as there is performance to extract from transmitting heat through the system.
“Of course, the floor is a big performance differentiator on these cars and we have opted an aggressive approach on development in that area to cover a lot of different concepts and really express ourselves.
“We have also changed the front wing and nose to manage airflow at the front of the car.
“By applying these changes, we are giving ourselves much wider scope to add performance across the next two seasons even if there has been some compromise on reaching certain targets, which we have pushed to the limit.
“We must keep pushing this dynamic development across all areas of the team.”
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