A bad week or the dark horse from F1 testing?

If headline times were the only thing that mattered from testing, then there would be one team you would expect to be pretty depressed after the Bahrain Formula 1 test. After all, if you wanted a quick snapshot of the progress everyone has made over the winter, then comparing the fastest times from last year’s test to this one should be a good starting point.

Some have made a significant jump – with Williams, Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo and Mercedes all two seconds faster than they managed to go 12 months ago. Stuck at the bottom of the comparison rankings was Alpine, which was the only squad not to have made an improvement on the stopwatch from last year. In fact, it was 0.064 seconds slower and was bottom of the rankings.

Added to the statistics not looking great was the fact that it ended the test second bottom in terms of mileage. Its 354 laps between Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly was more than 100 laps adrift of the super reliable AlphaTauri and well behind Ferrari (416), Red Bull (413), Mercedes (408) and Aston Martin (387).

But rather than these raw figures being a cause for alarm and pointing to Alpine bracing itself to face a troubled start the campaign, the mood emanating from its garage last week was actually pretty upbeat. In fact, while many have been singling out Aston Martin as the team most likely to burst clear of the midfield pack, there were a few engineers in the pitlane pointing in a different direction.

They suggested that, when you took into account its predicted fuel loads and engine modes, Alpine was right up there at the head of the midfield pack. Team principal Otmar Szafnauer definitely put himself in the positive camp too.

“I'm cautiously optimistic,” he smiled. “If you want to coin a headline: Szafnauer cautiously optimistic! We haven't taken the fuel out to see what we can do over one lap, so my optimism comes from the fact that our long run pace looks pretty good.

“Plus, we've had decent feedback from the drivers saying they're happy with the car: it's predictable, there's no gremlins, no snappiness. However, there's still some work to be done.”

The Alpine was conspicuous for its lack of low-fuel running, but that has never been Team Enstone's way

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

There certainly seems to be a contrast between the low-key lap times and its mood, but what is important to remember about Alpine is that it is a team that has always been very disciplined in testing. ‘Team Enstone’ has never been a squad that has seen the point in pumping out the fuel and then burning through a few sets of soft tyres just to go for a glory run. In its head, all that does is waste time that could be better used for perfecting its race set-up.

In fact, Alpine’s focus over the three days last week was more about learning the improved A523 rather than going for any meaningful times at all, as there wasn’t really a full-on focus on race distance runs either. What stints Alpine did do, however, looked to be pretty decent when compared to the opposition, and suggested it had the potential to move closer to the top three if indeed it was heavy on fuel and down on power.

PLUS: The tangible steps Alpine has taken to meeting its humble F1 2023 targets

Some of its trials in the test, and some new systems on the car, triggered the reliability issues which was not great, but equally, by the end of day three, it appeared to be more on top of things. As technical director Matt Harman explained: “The amount that we've learned in the car, we've exercised the envelope quite nicely. I don't think we've exercised it fully just yet, but I think we're good going into the race. We're trying to make sure we use all the tools we put in the car, which is the most important thing really. Don't then leave anything to chance.”

On the final evening, Ocon made reference to Alpine having been ‘conservative’ and ‘consistent’ all week – further suggesting that what it showed in the test is not what it will be capable of over the race weekend. And that is especially true with a decent upgrade package set to arrive

What is also critical to note in testing is that while some runs can look terrible from the outside, and point to a troubled car, sometimes these are simply the result of experiments by teams to deliberately find out where the set-up extremes are. This was something Alpine spent time on over the three days, as it opted to run its car quite stiff to evaluate set-ups that it will run over the year. That is why at times it looked a bit out of sorts on track.

There was also a lot of playing around with ride heights, and Harman also revealed that it would be trying something in Friday practice of Bahrain to bring its car even closer to the ground. In fact, this seemed to be a core focus of the team; working out exactly where it could position its car to hit peak performance without going so far that the dreaded porpoising returns.

PLUS: Has F1's porpoising problem been eradicated in the 2023 cars?

Harman added: “There is this cliff edge that you get to when you run the car a little bit too low. You need to understand that it's multidimensional. It's an aerodynamic thing, also a confidence thing for the driver.

“It's much more than just the bouncing metric, and I think you've got to understand that. Then you've got to try and develop techniques to soften that approach, because the closer you can get there, the faster you are. So that's the truth. That's the technology that we try and focus on.”

Testing extreme set-ups has helped Alpine establish where the optimal window of its car lands

Photo by: Alpine

Of course, sitting back and feeling smug because you got through your check list on heavy fuel and conservative engine modes is one thing, but there still comes a point where teams have to know how their car performs on the absolute limit. That is why a lot of them still do a low fuel run at some point to better understand things. Asked what unknowns Alpine faced by not running low fuel and turning its engine up, Harman gave an interesting response.

“I think what you're saying is that when you don't run at the optimum, are you confident that you know where the optimum really is?” he said. “That's always a small concern.

“But the way in which we run the car, and the way maybe we slightly de-rate it, it's quite well understood. We have good simulation and correlation in that area. And so, we're pretty confident about where we are and where we might be. And I suppose I'll just leave it to you to guess how far away we are from that.”

On the final evening, Ocon made reference to Alpine having been ‘conservative’ and ‘consistent’ all week – further suggesting that what it showed in the test is not what it will be capable of over the race weekend. And that is especially true with a decent upgrade package set to arrive. From him too, no sense of alarm nor too much optimism for what’s around the corner.

“I think it's too early to be confident,” said the Frenchman. “If you go confident then you just slip back and think you're fine – and that's when the others are going to be working harder than you. So no, I don't think that's the atmosphere inside the team at the moment; be confident and happy to just go the way we are. We're going to keep working, keep trying to find stuff and come up with a plan for FP1.”

It’s only then we will get our answer about whether Alpine has played a blinder by being super smart in testing, or it is facing a bigger uphill challenge than even it is anticipating right now.

Ocon stresses it's too early for optimism, but encouraging noises from Alpine suggest it is on track

Photo by: Alpine