(Motorsports news) Esteban Ocon said, the Enstone team, which had set a preseason goal to maintain fourth place in the 2023 constructors’ championship while narrowing the distance to Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes, has dropped to sixth place by the summer break, behind midfield rivals McLaren and Aston Martin.
Given the decline, Alpine’s owner Renault Group has attempted to replace Laurent Rossi as CEO of the organization while enabling Otmar Szafnauer as team principal and Alan Permane as sporting director to resign mutually. Pat Fry, the chief technical officer, has also accepted an offer to lead Williams’ design division.
In the midst of the chaos, Pierre Gasly improved from sixth to second in the slick race at Spa on Saturday because to the rain, and Ocon improved from 14th to ninth in the full GP on Sunday. Ocon attributed Alpine’s return to its 2022 streak of slapping upgrades on and scoring a quick hit to this competitiveness rather than needing to wait for other teams to thoroughly examine and correlate the new components.
“It’s very encouraging that the car seems to advance every time we bring an update,” he remarked. “Obviously, I dedicate that [Sunday result] to Viry and Enstone, because it’s really encouraging to see how much our contributions to the track actually help us advance.” Alpine created a new front wing with Spa specifications and made more substantial floor body adjustments, including updated forward fences, “canoes ramps,” and a smoother diffuser wall cut out to increase downforce.
When asked to elaborate on the changes they had made to the vehicle, Ocon said: “The pace that we had on entry of bends and especially at medium- to high-speed, looking at how low in downforce we were, it was extremely impressive. “Clearly, the automobile has much greater stability and grip. It was clearly audible.
Ocon remarked, “It’s always been a strength of ours. If Alpine returns to its 2022 upgrade strike rate success, that will be great. We will be fine if they just keep [arriving] more frequently, in my opinion. 2021 Hungarian GP champion Ocon stated that it was incorrect to charge Alpine with missing consistency after reviewing the first half of the season for the team. Instead, it was necessary to concede that other teams had won the development competition.
People will say that we lacked consistency, but the tempo is what it is, so that is not really the case, he added. “It’s just that the middle has seen more improvement in the others. With the update we provide, we’ve kind of caught up, but we’re no longer in the top five. As easy as that, we simply need to improve more. Continue to provide updates.
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