Alpine is always inventing something: the A524 is a threat

The presentation repeated two mantras until it became clear enough: It’s a real car, and they’ve been “very aggressive” in designing and developing it. Alpine unveiled the bold A524 this Wednesday at Enstone. The adjective “aggressive” has already been lost in presentations; all teams say so. At least this car looks like this: From his humble predecessor, he inherited only the steering wheel. Optimized front suspension, greatly simplified aerodynamics, redesigned cooling circuits, all-new rear suspension and an engine cover narrowed almost as much as the Renault power unit allows.

“The 2023 car was already at the limit, it did not allow us to move further, so we took this very aggressive approach,” says technical director Matt Harman about the project that has kept him busy for the past 18 months. It will be driven by Esteban Ocon (“Don’t worry, Esteban, this car will be more comfortable,” Harman said during the presentation) and Pierre Gasly, who turned 28 on the day of the premiere. The two Frenchmen, whose contract ends in 2024 and, given the curves of the transfer market, will have to get to work.

Alpine dropped to sixth in last year’s constructors’ championship, behind the big three plus McLaren (in the closing stages of the campaign) and Aston Martin (at the start). True, they got on the podium in Monaco (Esteban) and Zandvoort (Gasly), urban tracks strengthened the car, which lacks power on the straights and reliability in general. But they are always there. They can change the entire sports composition, kick out the main team and in a few hours rise to the podium. This team has so much career experience that they can never be knocked out of the theoretical top 10. fight for points, no matter how much the level in this F1 rises.