F1: Alpine, from the basement to the best of the rest in 2024

The French team had a disastrous start last season, but with a double podium in Brazil they took a leap and closed the Constructors’ World Cup sixth.

Alpine had its official debut in F1 at the 2021 Bahrain GP after the decision made by Renault from its parent company to rename all its official competition teams with the nomenclature of its sports models. Since then, changes in search of performance were constant in names and equipment.

Cyril Abiteboul was the director of Renault F1, but he did not get to be on the track with Alpine when he was removed in January 2021 and replaced by Laurent Rossi, who thus became, in addition to the director of strategy and commercial development, the CEO of Alpine in the sports branch. Esteban Ocon’s victory in the Hungarian GP that year was a salve in a season in which he finished fifth among the Constructors. The clear objective was to improve in 2022 and he achieved it. Romanian Otmar Szafnauer joined as team director, who came with years of experience at Force India, Racing Point and Aston Martin. Although the team did not win, it advanced one place in the team tournament and was curated, behind Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. He managed to beat McLaren in a fight to the end. The collapse began in 2023. The lack of power of the Alpine engine was noticeable, the aerodynamic part could not solve it and the team fell to sixth place.

The drop in performance took over Rossi, Szafnauer and Alan Permane (sports director) in July 2023. The bleeding continued with the departure of Pat Fry, who was the technical head of the team (he went to Williams). Bruno Famin, vice president of Alpine and with a past as director of Peugeot in the Dakar, assumed management of the team. The whole French mess ended up with sixth place in Constructors.

Modifications to the canopy continued into 2024, with Famin flying into the air in July and Oliver Oakes, who was leading the Hitech team in F2 and F3. A few days after Oakes took office, Flavio Briatore was appointed executive advisor.

Alpine’s season until that last turn of the helm was disastrous. The team had added just 14 points in 20 races, until the balm from Brazil arrived. The crazy race, disrupted by rain, scrambled the race and, added to the improvement in the performance of the A524, The French went 2-3 (Esteban Ocon was second and Pierre Gasly, third). The 35 points from the São Paulo weekend gave the Enstone team a great chance to fight for sixth place in Constructors, something unthinkable until that weekend. And the closing was good, with ten points scored in Qatar and another six in Abu Dhabi to seal sixth place, behind McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes and Aston Martin.

This year will be the last year that Alpine will carry its own engine. By 2026, a year with new technical regulations (cars and engines will be changed), the team will be a Mercedes-Benz customer. The modification led to the closure of the Viry impeller plant and the dismissal of 300 employees. French reconstruction continues.