Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi is certainly far from pleased with how the Enstone-based team have started the 2023 Formula 1 season, with the Frenchman having blasted the side for making the “same mistakes twice”.
It’s been a challenging start to the year for Alpine, who have so far failed to build on from their fourth-place finish in the Constructors’ Championship last season.
It’s been a mistake-prone year so far for the side, with the Australian Grand Prix having summed up their season.
Melbourne was by far the team’s best performance of the season in terms of outright speed, with Gasly having been in contention for a top-five finish, after demonstrating sublime pace.
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However, as the race restarted with two laps remaining following a red flag, Gasly and team-mate Esteban Ocon crashed into each other.
The duo also both failed to score points at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, whilst Gasly was at least able to finish eighth on Sunday in Miami.
After five races, the side are joint-fifth in the standings on just fourteen points, meaning they’re currently averaging just 2.8 points per race this campaign.
For a side with aspirations as high as Alpine, this simply isn’t good enough, with Rossi having seemingly had enough of the team’s current poor performance.
“This year, we started with a performance handicap on the one hand and an execution handicap on the other,” Rossi told the French broadcaster Canal Plus.
“That’s a lot, and it shows. Because we are at a ranking that is not at all worthy of the resources we have committed. We are quite far – very far – from the final objective of the year.
“What I see is that of course there is a lack of performance, and a lack of rigour in the execution,” Rossi said.
“But potentially there is also a state of mind that is not up to what has been done in the past by this same team.
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“I didn’t like the first grands prix because there was a lot of, I’m sorry to say, dilettantism. It has led to a result that is not good, mediocre, bad.
“And then the last race in Baku looked too much like the one in Bahrain, and that is not acceptable. We have the right to make mistakes, it’s a basic principle, but it must be that in the mistakes we learn.
“But when we make the same mistakes twice,” Rossi insisted, “it means that we have not learned and that we do not take responsibility, and that is what is not acceptable.”