Why Alpine is banking on ‘powerful’ F1 car upgrade only Gasly will get in Zandvoort

Alpine has responded to a mid-season competitive slide by fast-tracking a new development package originally planned for September’s Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix.

Even so, it has faced difficult choices. There is just one complete set of parts available, which will be fitted to Pierre Gasly’s car for the Dutch GP weekend, though it’s understood more components may arrive before Sunday’s race.

There are two key reasons for pushing the schedule. Firstly, Alpine is embroiled in a battle for fifth place in the constructors’ championship with Racing Bulls, effectively the ‘best of the rest’ slot behind the frontrunners. It is currently losing this battle: after a strong start to the season, Alpine has been overtaken by Racing Bulls, since Arvid Lindblad and Liam Lawson have begun scoring points more consistently.

Alpine has to contend with the possibility of Aston Martin being in the mix for points finishes in the weekends to come. Although that team has only scored one point so far this season, its competitiveness has been improved by its first major update of the year, introduced for the Hungarian GP. At Zandvoort it will have upgraded Honda power units as well as a further set of small aerodynamic tweaks to the front wing, floor fences and diffuser.

Another potent reason for Alpine pushing the upgrade package is the simulator results, which have enthused both drivers. But whenever one gets an update first it puts the other in something of a quandary.

“I was having exactly the same thinking yesterday,” Franco Colapinto told media including Autosport in Zandvoort when asked how he would process the possibility of his team-mate gaining a performance advantage. “I was like, ‘What do I actually want?’ In the sim it [the upgrade] is very powerful, and if it is like that [on track] it is very good for us.

Alpine car tech detail

Photo by: Stuart Codling

“We need some improvements, at the moment it looks good on the simulator and in the data it looks very strong and very big, so hopefully we can do the steps that we need to be fighting against the Racing Bulls and hopefully in front of them.”

The A526’s pace out of the box was encouraging, and the car itself seemed technically intriguing in many details, but the team has been relatively conservative in terms of bringing updates. While many senior engineers across the grid spoke in the pre-season about going through a learning phase with their cars in the early races before zeroing in on a development direction, only Alpine has really followed through with this.

The team brought a substantial upgrade package to the Miami Grand Prix in May but have generally only made track-specific tweaks since then. Aside from Pierre Gasly’s somewhat fortuitous podium in Monaco, it has mostly been scrapping for the lower points-paying positions since then, and sometimes falling short of that. In Austria and Hungary neither Gasly nor Colapinto finished inside the top 10 while both Lawson and Lindblad collected points.

As a result, having moved into fifth place early on, Alpine has been overtaken by Racing Bulls in recent races. There is an outside possibility that Gasly’s score from Monaco may change given the imminent FIA appeal hearing over that race’s result.

Alpine needs the new package to change its competitive trajectory. Racing Bulls has had the advantage on pace since it applied a new floor to both its cars in Montreal. It has also been stretching its capacity in development and production, introducing a step in Spa on one car (Lindblad’s) before it had enough parts for both.

Balance hasn’t been a problem for the A526 so much as what Gasly has often termed “pure pace”, pointing to an overall lack of aerodynamic load. Under the latest regulations things brings an additional penalty: not only is the car slower through the corners, and more disposed to slide and damage its tyres, the lack of downforce into certain corners affects the power unit’s ability to harvest electrical energy. This can compound over the lap into lower top speeds.

Alpine car tech detail

Photo by: Stuart Codling

What’s changed on the A526?

Alpine’s development package is the most comprehensive of those brought to the Dutch GP. A new floor design features revised geometries across the body and around the edges “to improve surface flow quality throughout the operating envelope and deliver local aerodynamic loading”, according to the team’s entry in the FIA’s technical presentation document.

This works as a system with changes to the leading edge of the floor, along with a reprofiled diffuser. Alpine has also redesigned the bodywork around the sidepods and ‘Coke bottle’, and made other detail changes to the rear around the brake drum face, impact structure, and wing flaps.

“We’ve had a couple of issues,” said Gasly in Zandvoort. “Some that appeared in the middle of that first part of the season. I think overall, looking at these last few races, we're just lacking pace pretty much in all types of corners.

“I think it's obviously the start of a new regulation with a lot of potential to unlock. With our development plan, we've just taken slightly longer than some others. At the same time, these parts were supposed to come in Monza.

“The team did well to get one set of these parts here in Zandvoort. And, yeah, we have quite a few things to cure. Because the gap at the start of the year was a lot smaller than it's been recently. So hopefully that will take us closer.”