2022 Alpine F1 Team

[Mansell89]

Ocon says Alonso's departure is a good thing. He mentionned the fact that he was doing almost 100% of the work in the simulator while Alonso was doing nothing
Interesting

Well given Alpine were hardballing Alonso on a contract extension, I’m guessing the sensible thing was to have Esteban do any sim work until you knew Alonso was or wasnt signing?

[Spoutnik]

Ocon says Alonso's departure is a good thing. He mentionned the fact that he was doing almost 100% of the work in the simulator while Alonso was doing nothing
Interesting

Well given Alpine were hardballing Alonso on a contract extension, I’m guessing the sensible thing was to have Esteban do any sim work until you knew Alonso was or wasnt signing?

You might be right
But it can mean Ocon has the ability develop a car

[selvam_e2002]

will come to know next year if Ocon given good feedback on car development

[Spoutnik]

[diffuser]

Ocon says Alonso's departure is a good thing. He mentionned the fact that he was doing almost 100% of the work in the simulator while Alonso was doing nothing
Interesting

Yeah, if that's true and Ocon was still slower than Alonso at most tracks? What does that say about Ocon's driving abilities? Plus Alonso was on it as of FP1, why would you ask him to Sim work? Ocon often didn't find or didn't figure out the balance till Q3. Maybe they were forcing Ocon to do alot of Sim cause he needed it? Without the sim work, maybe in that 1/3 of the races that he found it in Q3, he would never have found it.

What about all the sim work Piastri was doing? This must have been after the summer break, when they knew that both Piastri and Alonso were leaving.

You prep the car setup for the next race in the sim, you don't develop the car there. You also give feed back on the sim to make sure it's representative of the on track car.

[JordanMugen]

The driver pairing might just be the biggest boom or bust combo we have ever seen in F1.

That may be overstating it! Assuming Ocon and Gasly avoid colliding, then it could just be another solid pairing for Benetton similar to Fisichella and Wurz.

Alpine can't still want to be the best of the rest. They need to make a big step, and join the top teams if they commit to their plan. They have to be able to achieve this regardless of the quality of the pairing imo

The original five year plan from late 2015 was to win the championship by 2020, the new 100-race (approx. 5 year) plan is to win the championship by 2025 I believe.

I'll believe it when I see it, but as with race winning teams in the past, once Alpine-Renault are established as championship-contending team they should have no issue with picking up the likes of Leclerc or Russell should they become dissatisfied with their existing race teams.

Strangely Renault did previously have trouble retaining Alonso or attracting the likes of Schumacher or Raikkonen previously despite delivering a winning car in 2005 and 2006... So maybe "build it and they will come" is not that easy after all.

They even lost Raikkonen (and ace technical director James Allison) after 2013 despite having a race-winning car, it is a shame that Lotus couldn't have built on 2013's race winning Lotus-Renault to expediate the process of making Renault a winner from 2016-on.

[SmallSoldier]

My guess would be that they didn't run the PU cause they didn't want to spend the time and money to make the chassis changes to incorporate the new PU for 2021. Instead, in their words, they built the 2022 chassis. That's the chassis that core is completely decoupled from the aero. The outer jigsaw puzzle aero layer has apparently saved the money in upgrades....they say.

Weren’t changes almost frozen from 2020 to 2021 due to Covid? There were a couple of tokens that could be used, but I believe major changes to the chassis couldn’t happen because of it.

[diffuser]

My guess would be that they didn't run the PU cause they didn't want to spend the time and money to make the chassis changes to incorporate the new PU for 2021. Instead, in their words, they built the 2022 chassis. That's the chassis that core is completely decoupled from the aero. The outer jigsaw puzzle aero layer has apparently saved the money in upgrades....they say.

Weren’t changes almost frozen from 2020 to 2021 due to Covid? There were a couple of tokens that could be used, but I believe major changes to the chassis couldn’t happen because of it.

They were but McLaren were allowed to make changes for a new PU. So the FIA opened the door.

[SmallSoldier]

My guess would be that they didn't run the PU cause they didn't want to spend the time and money to make the chassis changes to incorporate the new PU for 2021. Instead, in their words, they built the 2022 chassis. That's the chassis that core is completely decoupled from the aero. The outer jigsaw puzzle aero layer has apparently saved the money in upgrades....they say.

Weren’t changes almost frozen from 2020 to 2021 due to Covid? There were a couple of tokens that could be used, but I believe major changes to the chassis couldn’t happen because of it.

They were but McLaren were allowed to make changes for a new PU. So the FIA opened the door.

McLaren situation was unique because of a change of PU manufacturer and used all of their tokens making the change… Alpine wouldn’t have been able to make chassis changes to accommodate the new PU in 2021 (assuming installation required more modifications than what the token system allowed).

[AR3-GP]

Weren’t changes almost frozen from 2020 to 2021 due to Covid? There were a couple of tokens that could be used, but I believe major changes to the chassis couldn’t happen because of it.

They were but McLaren were allowed to make changes for a new PU. So the FIA opened the door.

McLaren situation was unique because of a change of PU manufacturer and used all of their tokens making the change… Alpine wouldn’t have been able to make chassis changes to accommodate the new PU in 2021 (assuming installation required more modifications than what the token system allowed).

Why didn't Alpine spend the tokens on the chassis? The '21 car had no purpose other than to give them the best chance for '22.

Alpine/Renault is a big corporation and these executives have an innate habit of covering their rears....You have to know when you are being sold a sob story. The simple explanation is incompetence whether it was the allocation of resources to achieve the best result, or simply having the right people on the job but this gets papered over.

[SmallSoldier]

They were but McLaren were allowed to make changes for a new PU. So the FIA opened the door.

McLaren situation was unique because of a change of PU manufacturer and used all of their tokens making the change… Alpine wouldn’t have been able to make chassis changes to accommodate the new PU in 2021 (assuming installation required more modifications than what the token system allowed).

Why didn't Alpine spend the tokens on the chassis? The '21 car had no purpose other than to give them the best chance for '22.

Alpine/Renault is a big corporation and these executives have an innate habit of covering their rear's....You have to know when you are being sold a sob story. The simple explanation is incompetence whether it was the allocation of resources to achieve the best result, or simply having the right people on the job but this gets papered over.

I will have to dig into the token system for 2020 - 2021 transition… But the Token system didn’t cover every part of the car, it could very well:

A) Not allowed chassis changes (the whole point of the token system and freeze towards 2021 was cost savings due to a shorten season affected by Covid).
B) With the allowed Tokens, they wouldn’t have completed the installation, therefore rendering it meaningless if you are compromising.

It isn’t a matter of why they didn’t spend it on the new PU integration, it is a matter of whether they could do it… And if they could, if it would have allowed them to properly evaluate it afterwards.

[JordanMugen]

A) Not allowed chassis changes (the whole point of the token system and freeze towards 2021 was cost savings due to a shorten season affected by Covid).

McLaren changed their chassis significantly for 2021 with a new monocoque, Alpine could have done so also.

The back of the chassis and gearbox bell housing around the engine have changed significantly to adapt to the new power unit.

- McLaren production director Piers Thynne
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/2021- ... 6/5276306/

B) With the allowed Tokens, they wouldn’t have completed the installation, therefore rendering it meaningless if you are compromising.

Again, McLaren also replaced all of these components for 2021:

Changing power unit greatly alters the architecture of the car and the way everything is packaged, so the entire cooling layout and all the pipework, be that for fluid or air, has changed, along with all electrical harnessing and control boxes.

- McLaren production director Piers Thynne
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/2021- ... 6/5276306/

[diffuser]

Weren’t changes almost frozen from 2020 to 2021 due to Covid? There were a couple of tokens that could be used, but I believe major changes to the chassis couldn’t happen because of it.

They were but McLaren were allowed to make changes for a new PU. So the FIA opened the door.

McLaren situation was unique because of a change of PU manufacturer and used all of their tokens making the change… Alpine wouldn’t have been able to make chassis changes to accommodate the new PU in 2021 (assuming installation required more modifications than what the token system allowed).

Yep, Alpine could have asked for the same thing. Point is, they didn't even try.

To me, there is no difference to McLaren asking to make chassis changes because they were planing to change PU manufactures for 2021 and Alpine planning to release a new PU for 2021 that require chassis changes. You can't penalise Alpine just because they're an engine manufacturer. Fact is, they both planned the change for 2021.

[SmallSoldier]

A) Not allowed chassis changes (the whole point of the token system and freeze towards 2021 was cost savings due to a shorten season affected by Covid).

McLaren changed their chassis significantly for 2021 with a new monocoque, Alpine could have done so also.

The back of the chassis and gearbox bell housing around the engine have changed significantly to adapt to the new power unit.

- McLaren production director Piers Thynne
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/2021- ... 6/5276306/

B) With the allowed Tokens, they wouldn’t have completed the installation, therefore rendering it meaningless if you are compromising.

Again, McLaren also replaced all of these components for 2021:

Changing power unit greatly alters the architecture of the car and the way everything is packaged, so the entire cooling layout and all the pipework, be that for fluid or air, has changed, along with all electrical harnessing and control boxes.

- McLaren production director Piers Thynne
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/2021- ... 6/5276306/

McLaren got dispensation from the FIA due to a change of Manufacturers, not to install a new PU… Those changes couldn’t provide a “performance” improvement and had to be validated by the FIA as necessary for the installation.. McLaren commented all through that season that they couldn’t make the most out of the change of PU’s because the implementation couldn’t be optimized due to the restrictions.

Completely different story to Alpine installing a new PU on theirs… There was for all intends and purposes a chassis freeze between seasons.

[SmallSoldier]

They were but McLaren were allowed to make changes for a new PU. So the FIA opened the door.

McLaren situation was unique because of a change of PU manufacturer and used all of their tokens making the change… Alpine wouldn’t have been able to make chassis changes to accommodate the new PU in 2021 (assuming installation required more modifications than what the token system allowed).

Yep, Alpine could have asked for the same thing. Point is, they didn't even try.

To me, there is no difference to McLaren asking to make chassis changes because they were planing to change PU manufactures for 2021 and Alpine planning to release a new PU for 2021 that require chassis changes. You can't penalise Alpine just because they're an engine manufacturer. Fact is, they both planned the change for 2021.

You are missing the point completely… McLaren’s contract to move to Mercedes was signed before Covid hit the 2020 season… When it happens a mandated chassis freeze was set in place, no Team could make changes to their cars.

Since McLaren contractually couldn’t use Renault engines anymore and had to use the Mercedes PU in 2021, the FIA had to find a compromise… McLaren was allowed to make the necessary changes to install a new PU with different architecture, cooling requirements, layout, etc… In order for the rest of the Teams not to fill disadvantaged, they created the Token system to allow for certain improvements by other Teams.

Alpine couldn’t ask for the same reprieve to install a different PU, they had one they could use (their 2020 PU), McLaren didn’t… It wasn’t a matter of Alpine didn’t ask, they simply couldn’t or better said, weren’t allowed.