Alpine Technical Director Matt Harman has revealed the team is targeting a wider operating window with its 2024 Formula 1 car, which will be new from “front-to-back”.
The Anglo-French outfit regressed to sixth place in the Constructors’ standings, having initially targeted consolidating fourth place and cutting the gap to the top three teams.
Despite both drivers managing to score a podium at varying points of the year, Alpine was comprehensively overhauled by firstly Aston Martin and then also McLaren later on.
Alpine had sustained a strong rate of development upon F1’s return to ground effect machinery in 2022 but struggled to maintain that and hit a ceiling with the A523.
After conceding Alpine failed to make the headway expected during 2023, Harman has divulged that the marque is pressing ahead with vast changes for this year’s car.
“We didn’t we didn’t do as well [in 2023] as we did on A522,” Harman told Autosport.
“I think we had a great year [in 2022], that year, I think every time we touched the development of the car, we put load, and we took a lot of weight off the car as well. So there was a lot of performance to be had.
“As we’ve got on that asymptote, and we’re getting closer to the sorts of loads that we’re seeing now, it’s becoming more and more tricky, and you’ve got to get into more and more detail.
“And that means we have to be a little bit more careful about how we invest our money. And so I don’t think this year has been as successful as the 522.
“I think that’s why for the following year’s car, we’ve had to really unlock some real estate again, which is why the car is completely new, front-to-back.”
The performance of Alpine’s 2024 package will take on even more significance with attention during next year to predominantly be fixated on the upcoming 2026 rules reset.
He continued: “So I think you’ll see that [more teams making widespread changes for 2024] up and down the grid, because the car needs to last for a couple of years while we look for the future.”
With Alpine lagging a long way behind the top five and under no threat from the quartet behind, the decision to allocate resources to 2024 early became a straightforward choice.
“We knew we weren’t quite where we wanted to be this year, we knew that our developments were plateauing a little bit on the car, because of limitations that we had,” Harman added.
“When you know that you’re reaching that point, you’re better off understanding where you are in the championship, and think to yourself ‘let’s move over’, and we moved over reasonably quickly.
“Mechanically, we started the car in week 45 of 2022. The mechanical side of things in terms of chassis and those pieces of equipment and getting a lot of mass out the car, we started that very early. That’s something we do very regularly now. But it’s probably earlier than we’ve ever done.”
Reflecting on the issues that thwarted Alpine’s competitiveness last season, Harman highlighted the narrow working range of the A523 as being a particular problem that it is striving to rectify for 2024.
“I think its weakness is it needs to operate in a very narrow window,” he examined.
“And if you go to a circuit where it’s has a particular surface condition or a high level of ride content or something, then we can find ourselves in a position where it’s more of a struggle, and the drivers don’t enjoy the car.
“That’s one of its weaknesses at the moment, that it is quite narrow. So we need to broaden it a little bit.
“We thought we broadened it enough going into the season, but clearly, we didn’t. So that’s what we’re working on.”
