Did Alpine keep quiet? 'With upgrade package, we will come close to P3'

One team we got little from during the winter tests was Alpine F1. The team of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly covered the fewest kilometres apart from McLaren during the three days in Bahrain. Technical director Mat Harmann nevertheless rates the team highly.

Indeed, a 'nice' upgrade is coming for the A523 for the first race in Bahrain. Now each team will come up with a modified car between testing and the first race. A lot of data was collected during testing, but the teams have yet to make the most of it and show the full potential to each other.

Alpine sees itself as a challenger

Against Soymotor.com Harman says, however, that an upgrade package is coming with which the team is targeting to become the number three in the field. Harman: "You'll see some visual differences on our car in the first race, we have a nice upgrade on the way which will hopefully help us get closer to third if we're not there already." Harman's emphasis for this year is on continued development. That will be a lot more important in 2023 than last year, and so there will be a more aggressive execution of this.

The Enstone-based team's development strategy is to improve something about the car every race. It may not be the case that there will be a visible improvement on the A523 every race, but further development is needed every weekend.