Alfa Romeo revealed to the world their 2023 car on Tuesday morning, the C43, but actually showed images of the car before unveiling it.
The Hinwil-based side tried incredibly hard to produce a slick launch, only for an issue with the live broadcast to occur, which comically saw the car shown whilst the usual pre-reveal conversations were taking place.
Fans immediately spotted the error and reacted to it mostly with light-hearted jokes, with one Twitter user suggesting that “Alfa Romeo took car leaking game to a whole new level”.
Another said: “Alfa Romeo saw livery leaks last year and said hold my beer i’ll leak it myself!!”
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The livery itself is actually drastically different to the design they’ve used over recent years, with the usual red/white combo having been changed to red and black, following the team’s new title sponsor Stake.
Stake branding is a prominent feature on the C43, as is ‘Alfa Romeo’, which is written in white along the red engine cover.
It is, of course, the final time that Alfa Romeo will have their branding on a Sauber F1 car, with the Italian manufacturer departing the sport at the end of the forthcoming season.
The car itself is an evolution of the team’s 2022 challenger, which Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu managed to claim sixth in the Constructors’ Championship in.
Technical director Jan Monchaux revealed that work on the C43 started not long after their 2022 car was revealed, with the side having “identified” areas to concentrate on.
Monchaux also revealed how the team have focused on the rear of the car for the upcoming season, with the side having plucked up the courage to be “brave enough” to try and take the “next step” in terms of performance.
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“The project started a couple of weeks after last year’s roll-out where we started drafting the strategy for 2023,” Monchaux said.
“We identified areas where we need to unleash, and concentrated mainly on the rear part of the car where we wanted to be brave enough to do the next step which opened the door to other solutions we couldn’t implement last year.
“There is also a lot of things we changed on the car and also internally in our processes. It’s clearly one of the major focuses for us this last winter.”