Pierre Gasly has high hopes for Alpine’s new front wing this weekend at the British Grand Prix, where the Enstone-based side will be hoping to reduce the gap to the leading teams.
Alpine are in the midst of an odd season, given that they don’t really have any competition.
The French outfit aren’t strong enough to challenge the frontrunners; however, they’re too quick for the midfield teams.
It means they find themselves comfortably fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, where they’ll likely finish unless McLaren’s performance dramatically changes with their new upgrades.
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Finishing fifth certainly isn’t the team’s goal, especially after they claimed fourth last season.
However, following the sensational rise of Aston Martin, fifth is the best they’ll be able to salvage this year.
Alpine’s new front wing at the Silverstone International Circuit should improve their pace though, something which will support them against a rapidly improving McLaren.
The side’s technical director Matt Harman is looking forward to seeing the upgrade in action, with the entire team being “quite excited”.
“It’s going to change some of the characteristic of our car and that’s important,” Harman told The Race’s F1 podcast.
“We’re looking to move a little bit around some of our low speed balance. We’re looking to understand a little bit more about some of our aero balance in general.
“I think this does that for us. It moves us to a different place. It puts quite a bit of load on the car, but it also puts it in a slightly different way to how we would normally have engineered the car. So we’re quite excited.”
The hope is that the new front wing will help Gasly and Esteban Ocon mid-corner, where the duo often has to deal with a bout of understeer.
Gasly admitted that the car is a “bit lazy” currently in medium and low-speed corners, something which will hopefully be solved with the addition of the new front wing.
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“For me, it’s trying to cure some of the understeer we’re getting mid-corner, especially in low and medium speed corners the car is sometimes a bit lazy and we are lacking a bit of rotation and then it impacts our traction,” said Gasly.
“You’re always chasing, constantly wanting to improve the kind of combined entry and exit in terms of the rear grip you have available without losing the front grip at the apex.
“It’s the through-corner balance you’re always trying to improve and simultaneously also trying to improve the overall load of the car.”