2021 Alpine F1 Team

[r101]

Hopefully we can carry the momentum into next year! Alpine looked so strong as a team at Qatar

This year is really strange... very strong in Qatar, nowhere in Brazil a week ago.

- Car likes fast corners
- Car has good aero for top speed
- Engine is underdeveloped, they said they could've done a 'Honda' and push 2022 engine to 2021, but finally decided to push 2023 to 2022, and leave 2020 engine for 2021.

[toraabe]

Hopefully we can carry the momentum into next year! Alpine looked so strong as a team at Qatar

This year is really strange... very strong in Qatar, nowhere in Brazil a week ago.

- Car likes fast corners
- Car has good aero for top speed
- Engine is underdeveloped, they said they could've done a 'Honda' and push 2022 engine to 2021, but finally decided to push 2023 to 2022, and leave 2020 engine for 2021.

The car seems to have a efficient aero. Brazil nowhere. But Hungary really slow and Qatar with a lot of fast corners seems to suit the car. Engine is good and will probably be the basis for next year engine. I suppose that the engine is still a little bit better than Ferrari.

[toraabe]

Can’t begin to tell you how pleased I am for Fernando.

Over the years, I’ve come to realise that he was just pure brilliance, that he mellowed once he realised Hamilton in 2007 wasn’t just any ordinary “rookie”, and how he dragged Ferrari closer to the title than any other time since 2007.

McLaren Honda was just unlucky - he could only trust Ron on the competitiveness of that PU, and he was right to let Lando and Carlos build their team back again whilst he explored himself out of F1.

I really hope Alpine deliver him a really competitive car next season- he would be such amazing value for the fans if he was mixing with Lewis, Max, and the other upcoming stars like Lando, George, Charles and Carlos.

I think so. Nevertheless Alpine is his team, and I think the biggest mistake was to leave them. It is just so nice to se how he is enjoying driving there

[Andres125sx]

[diffuser]

This year is really strange... very strong in Qatar, nowhere in Brazil a week ago.

- Car likes fast corners
- Car has good aero for top speed
- Engine is underdeveloped, they said they could've done a 'Honda' and push 2022 engine to 2021, but finally decided to push 2023 to 2022, and leave 2020 engine for 2021.

The car seems to have a efficient aero. Brazil nowhere. But Hungary really slow and Qatar with a lot of fast corners seems to suit the car. Engine is good and will probably be the basis for next year engine. I suppose that the engine is still a little bit better than Ferrari.

Well it's pretty much the same car as they started the year with that was eating up rear tires in Bahrain, Pirelli changing the rear tires helped alot but that is still the weakness (rear traction). They didn't do enough in the off season to resolve that and moved on to 2022 quickly. When they go to rear limited tracks they struggle. They need long straights or long curves to make up time. The good news is they have a very strong Front, probably third best. I said "Good news" but that will have no relevance on 2022 as the suspension/aero has to be completely revamped by the regs.

[selvam_e2002]

Can’t begin to tell you how pleased I am for Fernando.

Over the years, I’ve come to realise that he was just pure brilliance, that he mellowed once he realised Hamilton in 2007 wasn’t just any ordinary “rookie”, and how he dragged Ferrari closer to the title than any other time since 2007.

McLaren Honda was just unlucky - he could only trust Ron on the competitiveness of that PU, and he was right to let Lando and Carlos build their team back again whilst he explored himself out of F1.

I really hope Alpine deliver him a really competitive car next season- he would be such amazing value for the fans if he was mixing with Lewis, Max, and the other upcoming stars like Lando, George, Charles and Carlos.

I think so. Nevertheless Alpine is his team, and I think the biggest mistake was to leave them. It is just so nice to se how he is enjoying driving there

Most of the people does not know that how much KM Hamilton did in 2006 on Mclaren before he drive along with 2 time WDC Mr. Alonso. By theory Hamilton was Rookie however in practical he is not. He drove nearly 10+ race distance with Mclaren before Joining with Alonso 2007.

It is Alonso who adopted the car very quickly in 2007 because Hamilton used to that car already.

Alonso never mentioned this nor they(Alonso and Hamilton) never crashed on the track like Ham vs Ros and Ham vs Max.

Alonso is a great driver for this generation!

[Blackout]

The car seems to have a efficient aero. Brazil nowhere. But Hungary really slow and Qatar with a lot of fast corners seems to suit the car. Engine is good and will probably be the basis for next year engine. I suppose that the engine is still a little bit better than Ferrari.

The engine is basically 3 years old (with minor changes in 2020 and 2021), like the chassis of this A521, so I dont think it will be the "basis" of the 2022. The team wont obviously unlearn what they learned with this generation of PU but they said that the 2022 beast is completeley different and is a big departure from the current concept.*
This PU was very good in 2019 (spec C) and in 2020, but it can't do miracles in 2021, and according to Prost and/or M.Schmidt, it is 35 PS behind the best, today
.
https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... n-neunter/

The engine is said to shed 35 hp to the best in class. "That would be half a second," calculates the 51-time GP winner

.
*Lately Rossi said:
.

What about the new 2022 engine? Will it mark the technological breakthrough often mentioned by Cyril Abiteboul?
I'm not going to go into detail. We have an engine that will change drastically compared to this year's, both in terms of technical definition and operating conditions. Why do I say that? Because it's going to have an impact on the single-seater, the chassis, typically the sizing of the coolers and so on. So this engine is going to be eminently different from the current engine, that's for sure.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

https://www.autohebdo.fr/actualites/f1/ ... -team.html

[peewon]

The car seems to have a efficient aero. Brazil nowhere. But Hungary really slow and Qatar with a lot of fast corners seems to suit the car. Engine is good and will probably be the basis for next year engine. I suppose that the engine is still a little bit better than Ferrari.

The engine is basically 3 years old (with minor changes in 2020 and 2021), like the chassis of this A521, so I dont think it will be the "basis" of the 2022. The team wont obviously unlearn what they learned with this generation of PU but they said that the 2022 beast is completeley different and is a big departure from the current concept.*
This PU was very good in 2019 (spec C) and in 2020, but it can't do miracles in 2021, and according to Prost and/or M.Schmidt, it is 35 PS behind the best, today
.
https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... n-neunter/

The engine is said to shed 35 hp to the best in class. "That would be half a second," calculates the 51-time GP winner

.
*Lately Rossi said:
.

What about the new 2022 engine? Will it mark the technological breakthrough often mentioned by Cyril Abiteboul?
I'm not going to go into detail. We have an engine that will change drastically compared to this year's, both in terms of technical definition and operating conditions. Why do I say that? Because it's going to have an impact on the single-seater, the chassis, typically the sizing of the coolers and so on. So this engine is going to be eminently different from the current engine, that's for sure.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

https://www.autohebdo.fr/actualites/f1/ ... -team.html

Interesting reads. I like Rossi so far. Seems to have a pragmatic assessment of the current performance of the team and seems to understand what areas need improvement. His tone is well matched by Budkowski. Under promise and (hopefully) over deliver which seems like a polar shift from Abiteboul.

Still a concern with PU undergoing a massive architecture change about reliability and performance and no definitive news about it from Viry. 35 HP is a lot to overcome and its interesting to see that after 8 seasons of the hybrid era, the PU performance is still the deciding factor.

[diffuser]

Remember, they've been working on the new PU for 3 years, they just haven't been able to use it cause of the change of architecture not fitting the old frame. So it isn't one change, it many iterations over 3 years. 35 HP over 3 years isn't that big a jump. It's the reliability I'm concerned with. Hopefully they've been running a mule.

[peewon]

Remember, they've been working on the new PU for 3 years, they just haven't been able to use it cause of the change of architecture not fitting the old frame. So it isn't one change, it many iterations over 3 years. 35 HP over 3 years isn't that big a jump. It's the reliability I'm concerned with. Hopefully they've been running a mule.

Taffin ruled out the split turbo in 2017 and I know the pre-pandemic plan was to introduce it before this year. I only know for certain it was on the dyno when Fernando visited Viry in Sept. last year. If there was news about them working on it before that, then Ive completely missed it. So not really sure about the timeline.

It would've been nice to go into 2022 with a real-world tested PU. They could then focus entirely on the what I presume will be constantly evolving aero philosophies as teams start to copy each other's homework. Also, Merc just seemingly keeps eking out 10-15 HP every update, even though they're pushing 55%(?) efficiency, which cant be easy.

Two scenarios that could derail this project for Fernando's timeline are if the PU gets stuck in a reliability-performance feedback loop akin to the early days of McHonda or some completely sub optimal design philosophy for the new aero rules which becomes hard to back track from quickly as everything is designed around it.

[diffuser]

Remember, they've been working on the new PU for 3 years, they just haven't been able to use it cause of the change of architecture not fitting the old frame. So it isn't one change, it many iterations over 3 years. 35 HP over 3 years isn't that big a jump. It's the reliability I'm concerned with. Hopefully they've been running a mule.

Taffin ruled out the split turbo in 2017 and I know the pre-pandemic plan was to introduce it before this year. I only know for certain it was on the dyno when Fernando visited Viry in Sept. last year. If there was news about them working on it before that, then Ive completely missed it. So not really sure about the timeline.


It would've been nice to go into 2022 with a real-world tested PU. They could then focus entirely on the what I presume will be constantly evolving aero philosophies as teams start to copy each other's homework. Also, Merc just seemingly keeps eking out 10-15 HP every update, even though they're pushing 55%(?) efficiency, which cant be easy.

Two scenarios that could derail this project for Fernando's timeline are if the PU gets stuck in a reliability-performance feedback loop akin to the early days of McHonda or some completely sub optimal design philosophy for the new aero rules which becomes hard to back track from quickly as everything is designed around it.

RIght, but they didn't just put it on the Dyno, they had to design it. We don't know if that was the first iteration. It's not like the budget for the PU disappeared or they had those people doing nothing. You have to presume they were working on something if whatever they did didn't hit the track in an official capacity. Typically you'll have 2 engineering teams 1 for new R&D and the other Maintaining, at least in Computers. This PU seems to have been in Maintaining's hand since at least 2019.

I don't expect the Honda nightmare scenario, Honda was rushed into F1. They had no experience building this type of PU and got the sizing wrong. Once they figured out what they needed, they nailed it pretty quickly(3ird iteration). Alpine, at this point, have just too much experience with the PU to run into sizing issues of the turbo and MGU-H etc. The PU is the same right. just the placement of the turbo and MGU-H is different. You're new design takes advantage of the new placements of the turbo and MGU-H. As far as the efficiency, that's just ICE heads, combustion chambers, piston, intake and fuel changes. The software side isn't gonna change alot from where it is now. Worst case Scenario, they could have a year, PU wise, as bad as Honda's last year with McLaren. They had all kind of issues with the spindle connecting the Turbo and the MGU-H. Pretty sure I remember Renault had hired some Merc PU engineers at one point. So hopefully they got some good input on what you need to avoid those issues.

I'm expecting a year a little worse that Merc's PU issues this year. They are allowed reliability updates.

[Morteza]

[toraabe]

Cyril got hit tattoo. https://www.motorsportweek.com/2021/12/ ... iardo-bet/

[AeroDynamic]

[Morteza]

Special livery for this weekend, celebrating 100 races with Castrol or Castrol's 100th race with the team