Speaking after the launch of Alpine’s 2023 contender the A523, team principal Otmar Szafnauer talks of the team’s ambitions for the year ahead, the team’s improvements, as well as the upcoming midfield battle and his former team’s prospects.
After narrowly beating McLaren to fourth in last season’s Constructors’ Championship, Alpine have set aggressive performance and development goals for the 2023 season, with the end goal of solidifying their grasp on P4 and edging closer to the top three teams.
Speaking to the press, including PitDebrief, team principal Otmar Szafnauer discussed the team’s reliability development over the winter as well as their plans for the coming season.
“We’ve gotta develop at a higher rate than any other team…”
“We’ve got to improve, we’ve got to, as we said, not scrape by in fourth but be solidly there and be closer to third. For us to be able to do that we’ve gotta develop at a higher rate than any other team, and that’s not easy to do. But it’s the goal that we set ourselves.”
When quizzed on the team’s improvement since his move from Aston Martin for the 2022 season, Szafnauer notes a marked improvement over this time last year. Szafnauer stated the quality of this year’s A523 during shakedown is notably better than last year’s contender at the same point.
“Yes I have [noticed an improvement].” He stated. “Last year I wasn’t there when we had the shakedown, but I’ve read all the notes thereafter and we looked at how we could do things better and differently.
“This year’s shakedown was much better. The quality of the car is a lot higher. We had three main objectives. One: fix the reliability issues that we had; two: be underweight significantly, because we were overweight last year; and three: make sure that we change the car such that we can continue to bring aerodynamic developments in the future. I think we’ve done all of those three things.”
“Those areas that we struggled with in season last year, we fixed over the winter.”
Szafnauer then elaborated on the reliability issues which the team worked to alleviate. The team boss admits that reliability issues, mainly with the power unit, could not be fixed mid season last year and as such were focussed heavily on over the winter break.
“So there’s some things, especially on the powertrain, that we couldn’t really fix in season. But we know how to fix it and what the root cause was. So all those areas that we struggled with in season last year, we fixed over the winter.”
“To me the real test isn’t in ‘23, the real test is in ‘24 when you have to come up with the ideas yourself.”
Looking to the season ahead, Szafnauer was quizzed on his former team Aston Martin and whether he believes they can rival Alpine. While he answered evasively, he hinted that he expects a performance jump from the Silverstone based team, but is unsure if they will be able to sustain their performance in the years to come.
“Because it’s a relative game, it’s really hard to know. We will know soon. In three weeks we’ll all know.” He said of his former team. “ I’m sure that [Aston Martin] have made some high profile hires and they probably bring some knowledge from the teams that they came from.
“To me the real test isn’t in ‘23, the real test is in ‘24 when you have to come up with the ideas yourself. You haven’t brought them from Red Bull or you haven’t brought them from Mercedes. Those ideas you put in the car, and then thereafter you’ve got to come up with the developments yourself. To me that’s the real test.”
