Alfa Romeo hopes for improvement in 2024: 'Getting better in all areas'

Alfa Romeo Racing scored 16 points in the world championship this year, good for penultimate place among constructors. From July (the Austrian GP), points were taken in only two races: in Italy and in Qatar. Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou had a car that was simply not competitive enough, so that has to change in 2024.

Speaking to GPblog and others, Xevi Pujolar, Alfa Romeo's Head of Trackside Engineering, explains the main focus for next year. "Getting better in all areas. Looking at the race now, the pace was not consistent enough. So that's one of the things we need to improve," he elaborates. "But that's not the only thing. We need to improve the car, we need to improve operationally and the drivers also need to improve. So in all areas we need to make progress. Otherwise, it will be difficult to fight for a better position."

Updates did not bring enough

Alfa Romeo - which will no longer be called Alfa Romeo next year and will revert to the Sauber name as things stand - brought several updates during the season, but they did not have the desired effect. Progress was made, but not enough.

"Yes. We have found good directions, but it is still not enough. If we don't put everything together as a whole. But we have some, with the latest upgrades, good directions for next year," Pujolar said. "I don't think we are really satisfied with anything at the moment. It is what we have seen in the last races."

We have made progress in all areas, but we need to make more progress because everyone else is doing better than us. I don't think we are far away from the rest [...]. So if we improve in all areas, we should be able to compete at the top of the midfield again."

Competition as an example

Making a big step is possible, as several teams proved this season. Alfa Romeo wants to follow in their footsteps and compete for points every weekend next year, preferably not competing for just one point and tenth place. "That's where we want to go. We saw Aston Martin make a good move at the start of the season. McLaren did it in the first half of the part, and then they kept improving. And AlphaTauri made a good step in the second part of the season. So it's possible. And we are working hard on that at the factory," Pujolar concluded.