Optimism at Alpine for end of 2024 F1 season: “We are behind on updates compared to others”. Alpine: there is a fair amount of optimism for the end of the 2024 F1 season.

At Alpine, despite recent developments related to the Renault group, there is a fair amount of optimism for the end of the 2024 F1 season. For Oliver Oakes, the advantage could lie in the development program.

The Alpine team is second to last in the constructors’ championship, just thirteen points behind, and has come off a period of significant changes at the top, including the arrival of Oliver Oakes as team principal. In addition, the Renault group’s decision to shut down the 2026 power unit development program has relegated Alpine to a customer team.

Despite this, Oliver Oakes does not hide a veiled optimism for this season’s finale with six races to go. Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon have finished in the top ten only twice since the Red Bull Ring:

“We know that from now until the end of the season, we could achieve significant results,” Oakes said to Autosport and reported by Motorsport Week. “After Spa and Zandvoort, we hoped to survive; this series of races has been more or less what we expected.”

Race against time and delays in updates
Oliver Oakes emphasized that the team has been delayed in bringing updates to improve the A524; a problem that could yield results compared to their rivals:

“In fact, we were late in delivering what we had planned at the beginning of the season, and we ended up not being synchronized with others. I hope that by the end of the year we can at least show that we have performance improvements coming.” – he pointed out.

But will Alpine’s updates be functional to their cause? Oliver Oakes is very cautious about that:

“Some have made great strides this year, while others have made some moves that haven’t worked,” he added. “We just have to see how they perform when we bring them. I think the fight in that constructors’ group is quite tight, and everything can change from one weekend to the next.”

Now that the season is coming to an end and Esteban Ocon is already set for Haas, this could be demotivating; Oliver Oakes has ruled out this concern: “Of course, the drivers get nervous, just like me. You don’t want to race on Sunday without anything to fight for.” – he concluded.