Pierre Gasly has hailed Alpine’s 2024 mid-season turnaround as something he’s “never seen” during his time in Formula 1.
Gasly and Alpine endured a terrible start to the 2024 season with arguably the worst package on the F1 grid and spent the majority of the campaign sitting ninth in the Constructors’ standings.
Amid the turmoil, changes were made in the Alpine leadership, Technical Director Matt Harman and head of Aerodynamics Dirk de Beer left in March and David Sanchez was drafted in to lead the technical effort in May.
Next up, Flavio Briatore returned to Enstone in June as Executive Advisor, tasked by Renault Group CEO Luca de Meo to clear out the deadwood, trim budgets to essential resources and plan for a more prosperous future.
Former Team Principal Bruno Famin was the next chess piece to fall, exiting stage left to handle the power unit wind down at Viry during the summer break to make way for his eventual replacement Oliver Oakes.
With the new leadership structure settled, an upgraded Alpine A424 was unveiled at the United States Grand Prix in October and Gasly immediately started to trouble the top-10.
Bolstered by a fortuitous double podium at Interlagos, Alpine surged from ninth in the standings to finish sixth in the final Championship table, scoring 51 points in the final four rounds alone.
Speaking ahead of the F1 75 launch event at London’s O2 Arena, Gasly was thankful to have “stability” at Alpine after an incredible turnaround.
“I think having a bit of stability, I definitely don’t mind it because since I arrived it’s been a bit rocky and unstable,” Gasly told select media including Motorsport Week.
“I’m very pleased since Oli and Flav joined the team. You can clearly see the mindset and the spirit of the team is heading in the right direction.
“I think the processes in all departments are really being challenged and delivering the best they can and that’s what we’re doing.
“I think as a team, we showed last year we started extremely bad, looking at the performance in the first few races, but we still managed to turn things around in a way which was very impressive.
“Since my first season in F1, I’ve never seen such an evolution throughout the whole year.”
Alpine has ‘a long way to go’
After an incredible mid-season turnaround and consistent leadership plan in place, Gasly added “It definitely shows we’re making progress.”
Alpine desires to push on from sixth in the standings, capitalise on next year’s rule changes and a switch from OEM to Mercedes power unit customer and incrementally work its way up the grid.
Gasly acknowledges that this is a long-term project, but has faith in Briatore and Oakes to deliver on Alpine’s promise.
“There’s still a long way to go, but Flavio is a competitor. He’s in F1 to win. I’m in F1 to win.
“Oli is in F1 to bring the team to the top and also to win.
“It’s going to take the time we need, but definitely as a team I can see a lot of positivity and tell we’re going in the right way.”
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