Alpine has "good energy" again after mid-season F1 shake-up

Rouse landed his current role as part of a reorganisation that followed the sudden departures of team principal Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane, plus chief technical officer Pat Fry's move to Williams.

The team has focussed on improving its operational performance on race weekends, and that was evident with good results in recent races, notably seventh for Esteban Ocon in Qatar, and sixth for Pierre Gasly in the USA.

The A523 was less competitive relative to rivals in Mexico. However, Ocon still earned a point for 10th, while Gasly felt he could have been ninth had he not been caught out by pitting just before the red flag.

"It definitely feels like there's good energy in the team," said Rouse.

"And I think the last couple of weekends, we did a good job of maximising things in Austin, and it feels like we've got some consistency throughout the weekends.

"And yeah, there's still more to come, still building on that, and still understanding what we can do to keep improving.

"Definitely feels like we've made some progress in terms of how we're operating on the events, and how we're sort of trying to consistently optimise things. But there's still a long way to go with that, which is quite exciting."

Photo by: Filip Cleeren

Alpine A523

Regarding the main areas of focus he said: "We're constantly looking at where we can continue to improve the car, it's a natural thing.

"And just sort of just continuing to raise our level in terms of the attention to detail that we're looking at in everything that's going to help us move forward.

"And we're working hard on all of that sort of stuff, and enjoying the challenge. We certainly feel that the last few weekends have been good in terms of how we're approaching all of that. So we're just going to continue on that way."

Despite his personal frustration with the Mexican race, Gasly agreed that the team is getting stronger.

"I think we are getting in a place where I know at the end of the weekend, we kind of optimised," said the Frenchman.

"We've got issues, we've got clear weaknesses that we know we can't fix at the track. It's bigger changes that we need.

"But in terms of like the way we operate and maximising what we've got I think it's quite well managed. Yeah, definitely there's momentum."