Alpine opt for different course after poor start: 'It was a real shock'

At Alpine, the fire alarms have gone off, figuratively of course. For years, the French formation have underperformed, but 2024 surpasses all other years. In a negative sense. The technical structure has recently been shaken up and, according to interim team principal Bruno Famin - the successor to Otmar Szafnauer who left last year - it was necessary too.

Prior to the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, there suddenly came a press release from Alpine: technical director Matt Harman and chief aerodynamicist Dirk de Beer had left the team.

At the first GPs, Alpine's 2024 car was undrivable, with their worst perferomances being P19 and P20 during qualifying in Bahrain. By the way, a week later in Jeddah, things were not much better: a 17th and 18th place.

What does Famin have to say?

"That’s right that it was a shock, because we were really expecting a difficult start of the season — we knew this, and this is what we said during the launch of our car. But to be on the last row was a shock, to be honest. It just confirmed the need of changing in our team, and we made the change," Famin at Racer refers to the organisational changes.

According to the 62-year-old Frenchman, the problems are clear and so Alpine knows where the priority lies in the coming period. "I think we have to remember also that we were at the first race of the season, which is very long. The car is totally new. We have developments coming. We will work hard in developing that car. But of course, understanding what the problems are is key to solving . We have a quite clear idea of what are the problems and we are really working hard.”