Alpine’s 2022 season can be looked at as a glass half full or half empty, as the team managed to hold off a late advance from McLaren for fourth place in the championship, but also faced a whole host of reliability issues.
Fernando Alonso alone was forced to retire from six races in 2022, causing the Spaniard to become phenomenally frustrated with the team and jump ship to join Aston Martin ahead of next season.
Renault, who provide the power unit for Alpine, have suggested that they will make sure that they fix the team’s reliability issues for 2023 before focusing their time and energy on designing a new power unit for 2026, when the major change in engine regulations come into effect.
Despite the power unit being the downfall of the team on numerous occasions, preventing the team from reaching their true potential last season, Renault’s engine chief Bruno Famin has claimed that the power unit itself is not the issue.
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“We have not got really major issues on the engine itself, on the ICE,” claimed Famin.
“All the other problems we had were much more on the auxiliaries side; water pump, fuel pump. And this is something we are quite optimistic that we will be able to solve for ’23.
“The water pump has been a headache all season long for us. We improved it as much as we could in ’22, but it was clearly not enough.
“It was the concept itself of the water pump we had to change, and we are going to change it for ’23. Then we really hope that the problem will be solved from next year.”
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The future looks bright for Alpine, who with Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon in the cockpit of their cars next season will boast one of the most exciting driver lineups on the grid.
Both drivers have the perfect blend of experience and potential and will not want to be hindered by an unreliable power unit as both team and driver look to become regular podium contenders.
Since the rebrand of Racing Point was completed in 2021 Alpine have been on a steady rise, and with the budget cap and new regulations aiming to make the grid more competitive, it is an exciting time to be involved with the team going into 2023.