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Started: 5th Finished: 9th
QUALIFYING
Ocon was delighted to qualify fifth and ahead of Alonso, despite having only one set of fresh softs for Q3 and generally looking like marginally the slower Alpine driver through the weekend.
RACE
Irritated Alonso with his aggressive defence at the start, but settled into what can be called second in the midfield battle early on. He had dropped to seven seconds behind Norris by the time the first round of pitstops started. As neither Alpine driver had a second set of mediums, that meant a one-stopper with a long hard stint with the resulting lack of pace meaning both dropped away from Norris. Ocon was ordered to let Alonso past during that stint, then had to hold off Vettel in the closing stages for ninth.
Verdict: Excelled in Q3 and did a decent job in the race, albeit struggling more on the hards than Alonso.
Started: 6th Finished: 8th
QUALIFYING
Breezed through Q1 and Q2, ensuring he had two sets of fresh softs for the top 10 shootout. He ended up six hundredths slower than team-mate Ocon after a hustling lap, struggling in the first couple of corners for front end and then losing time to Ocon in the final sector.
RACE
Alonso was frustrated by Ocon’s aggressive defence at the start, settling into ninth place during the first stint. He fared slightly better than his team-mate once on the hards and passed him under team orders on lap 41.
Verdict: Slightly underachieved in Q3 but ultimately had the edge on Ocon on race pace.
Edd Straw's 2022 F1 Hungarian Grand Prix driver ratings - The Race (the-race.com)
Started: 5th Finished: 9th
QUALIFYING
Ocon was delighted to qualify fifth and ahead of Alonso, despite having only one set of fresh softs for Q3 and generally looking like marginally the slower Alpine driver through the weekend.
RACE
Irritated Alonso with his aggressive defence at the start, but settled into what can be called second in the midfield battle early on. He had dropped to seven seconds behind Norris by the time the first round of pitstops started. As neither Alpine driver had a second set of mediums, that meant a one-stopper with a long hard stint with the resulting lack of pace meaning both dropped away from Norris. Ocon was ordered to let Alonso past during that stint, then had to hold off Vettel in the closing stages for ninth.
Verdict: Excelled in Q3 and did a decent job in the race, albeit struggling more on the hards than Alonso.
Started: 6th Finished: 8th
QUALIFYING
Breezed through Q1 and Q2, ensuring he had two sets of fresh softs for the top 10 shootout. He ended up six hundredths slower than team-mate Ocon after a hustling lap, struggling in the first couple of corners for front end and then losing time to Ocon in the final sector.
RACE
Alonso was frustrated by Ocon’s aggressive defence at the start, settling into ninth place during the first stint. He fared slightly better than his team-mate once on the hards and passed him under team orders on lap 41.
Verdict: Slightly underachieved in Q3 but ultimately had the edge on Ocon on race pace.
Edd Straw's 2022 F1 Hungarian Grand Prix driver ratings - The Race (the-race.com)
In addition, Alonso will also run into some old acquaintances at Aston Martin. Martin Whitmarsh, for example, who was Team Principal during Fernando's first stint at McLaren, as well as other leaders such as the Head of Communications, Matt Bishop.Why Alonso's choice of Aston Martin makes perfect sense | RacingNews365
至少他俩应该很清楚怎么不弄毛他吧……
In addition, Alonso will also run into some old acquaintances at Aston Martin. Martin Whitmarsh, for example, who was Team Principal during Fernando's first stint at McLaren, as well as other leaders such as the Head of Communications, Matt Bishop.
Why Alonso's choice of Aston Martin makes perfect sense | RacingNews365
至少他俩应该很清楚怎么不弄毛他吧……
啊，bishop现在居然在amr啊！我勒个大去哈哈哈哈哈。大家，努力加油，和平共处lol 经历过本田时代，有啥好怕的 
（其实我还蛮喜欢bishop老人家的233，当年批评推放宽140字限制的那条内容太精彩了
啊，bishop现在居然在amr啊！我勒个大去哈哈哈哈哈。大家，努力加油，和平共处lol 经历过本田时代，有啥好怕的 [狗头]（其实我还蛮喜欢bishop老人家的233，当年批评推放宽140字限制的那条内容太精彩了
ASTON MARTIN ONLY HAS ‘SMALL GROUP’ STILL WORKING ON 2022 CAR
Aug 8 2022
By Jack Benyon
Aston Martin’s Formula 1 team principal Mike Krack says only a small group of people are working on the squad’s 2022 car, as it has already turned its attention to next year’s machine.
The team has brought significant upgrades at multiple rounds this year including a large package at the Spanish Grand Prix, and has been able to fight for points more consistently since then.
But after 13 races the team is still second to last in the constructors’ standings, and while it could still realistically move up as high as sixth, Krack confirmed its focus has changed to the AMR22’s successor.
“Although we must continue to improve the performance of the AMR22 and we have a small group of people still working on it, we’ve already turned our attention to the AMR23,” he said.
“Our focus has been on AMR23 for a while now because the car needs to perform right out of the box.
“A new season and new car represent the biggest opportunity to move ahead of our competitors.”
With the introduction of the new aero rules in F1 this year, teams are bringing regular upgrades to solve short and long-term weaknesses with their designs.
Krack feels people assume Aston Martin’s upgrades “haven’t worked, because we haven’t climbed up the competitive order”, but insists they have been successful, “just not enough for us to catch up”.
He also played up the team’s ability to innovate with its new rear wing – which has an elaborate endplane design – in Hungary, off the back of accusations earlier in the season that the team was copying Red Bull with some of its designs.
“We’ve been wrongly accused of copying this season, and the new rear wing we brought to the Hungarian Grand Prix underlined our ability to innovate and steal a march on the opposition by coming up with ideas our rivals haven’t,” he said.
“A lot of people think it’s easy to just design a new wing, build it and put it on the car. But if you look at the wing, or any of the upgrades we bring to the car, the way they’re engineered, optimised, and produced, it’s an art form.
“Plus, you can’t just build one of them, you have to build three or four of the same specification to have enough for both cars and spares.
“We brought a major upgrade package to the Spanish Grand Prix – new sidepods, floor, engine cover, modifications to the front suspension – but to deliver enough parts in time so both cars could run in the latest specification…
“I’ve never seen anything like that. It was an extraordinary effort from everyone in the team.”
The upgrade work Aston Martin is undertaking is being done in its existing factory while the new one is being built concurrently.
Work has begun on its new windtunnel, and Krack says that is on track to be ready in 2024.
As soon as the first building is complete – expected to be early next year, which will house “design, manufacturing and marketing resource” – the existing factory will be demolished and the buildings housing the windtunnel can be built.
Aston Martin only has ‘small group’ still working on 2022 car - The Race (the-race.com)
ASTON MARTIN ONLY HAS ‘SMALL GROUP’ STILL WORKING ON 2022 CAR
Aug 8 2022
By Jack Benyon
Aston Martin’s Formula 1 team principal Mike Krack says only a small group of people are working on the squad’s 2022 car, as it has already turned its attention to next year’s machine.
The team has brought significant upgrades at multiple rounds this year including a large package at the Spanish Grand Prix, and has been able to fight for points more consistently since then.
But after 13 races the team is still second to last in the constructors’ standings, and while it could still realistically move up as high as sixth, Krack confirmed its focus has changed to the AMR22’s successor.
“Although we must continue to improve the performance of the AMR22 and we have a small group of people still working on it, we’ve already turned our attention to the AMR23,” he said.
“Our focus has been on AMR23 for a while now because the car needs to perform right out of the box.
“A new season and new car represent the biggest opportunity to move ahead of our competitors.”
With the introduction of the new aero rules in F1 this year, teams are bringing regular upgrades to solve short and long-term weaknesses with their designs.
Krack feels people assume Aston Martin’s upgrades “haven’t worked, because we haven’t climbed up the competitive order”, but insists they have been successful, “just not enough for us to catch up”.
He also played up the team’s ability to innovate with its new rear wing – which has an elaborate endplane design – in Hungary, off the back of accusations earlier in the season that the team was copying Red Bull with some of its designs.
“We’ve been wrongly accused of copying this season, and the new rear wing we brought to the Hungarian Grand Prix underlined our ability to innovate and steal a march on the opposition by coming up with ideas our rivals haven’t,” he said.
“A lot of people think it’s easy to just design a new wing, build it and put it on the car. But if you look at the wing, or any of the upgrades we bring to the car, the way they’re engineered, optimised, and produced, it’s an art form.
“Plus, you can’t just build one of them, you have to build three or four of the same specification to have enough for both cars and spares.
“We brought a major upgrade package to the Spanish Grand Prix – new sidepods, floor, engine cover, modifications to the front suspension – but to deliver enough parts in time so both cars could run in the latest specification…
“I’ve never seen anything like that. It was an extraordinary effort from everyone in the team.”
The upgrade work Aston Martin is undertaking is being done in its existing factory while the new one is being built concurrently.
Work has begun on its new windtunnel, and Krack says that is on track to be ready in 2024.
As soon as the first building is complete – expected to be early next year, which will house “design, manufacturing and marketing resource” – the existing factory will be demolished and the buildings housing the windtunnel can be built.
Aston Martin only has ‘small group’ still working on 2022 car - The Race (the-race.com)
F1 TEAMS NEED TO STOP TAKING NEEDLESS DRIVER CONTRACT RISKS
Aug 9 2022
By Edd Straw
Formula 1 has always been about the fusion of car and driver, with the individual between the engine and front wheels the critical component when it comes to exploiting the performance potential of the machinery.
That’s why it’s always baffling when an F1 team is laissez-faire in ensuring it has the best quality possible of this key component.
Taking risks with drivers in a seller’s market should be avoided. But that’s what Alpine on the driver front did by assuming Fernando Alonso would eventually accept a contract with no assurances of his place beyond 2023, which had the knock-on effect of at the very least making Oscar Piastri believe he had a window of opportunity to go elsewhere.
Alpine is not the first team to have been caught out when it comes to drivers and that could have a significant negative impact on its 2023 season and Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi’s 100-race plan, which started counting down at the beginning of the season.
It’s inconceivable a team would take such risks with the supply of any other car component. F1 operations invest significantly in ensuring design and production times are pushed to the limit to get parts onto the car as quickly as possible. In doing so, there’s a compound gain with downstream parts also arriving more quickly. Therefore, hanging around when it comes to such things is a no-no.
And yet drivers are not always seen in the same way. That’s bizarre given the influence they can have on performance. The car itself, combined with the immutable laws of physics, defines the ultimate performance potential but it is the driver that must translate that into real-world laptimes. That’s not just over a qualifying lap, but also over a race distance.
But the driver’s sphere of influence is bigger than that. They feed into the development direction and in some ways define it. For example, Max Verstappen’s capacity to deal with a car that is faster but trickier to drive raises the performance ceiling for Red Bull. And every driver will set that ceiling in a different place and hit it when confronted with different characteristics.
Drivers also have a profound influence on the more intangible aspects. Every single member of the team looks to the drivers to exploit that performance and if they feel they can be confident in the person in the cockpit, that has a positive effect. After all, if you have a driver in the car who is giving away three tenths of a second, that’s hardly a powerful motivating factor.
The drivers are the only component in an entire F1 team through which everything travels in some way or another. It’s through their skill, their control and finesse with the throttle, brake and steering wheel, as well as their mental strength and capacity, that the potential of the car is exploited.
Yes, drivers are ten-a-penny. Getting hold of a driver who will do an adequate job in F1 is not difficult even at a time when opportunities for seat time are so limited. But the difference that the driver can make is significant, not just in terms of their performances on track and all-round contribution to the team but also their wider commercial value. Those difference makers are in far shorter supply.
But there are two problems with drivers. Firstly, they are human beings and therefore by their very nature more capricious to deal with than the rest of the components of the car. Secondly, they are expensive. Those two factors mean that you’re dealing with two very powerful factors – ego and money. It’s the same when it comes to the decision makers, which makes for a dangerous mix.
There’s always the chance Alonso would have walked away from Alpine and perhaps he’d have strung out the negotiations whatever the terms on offer were if this Aston Martin move had been brewing for some time, but getting pen on paper should have been a top priority. Doubly so given Alonso is a canny operator not without a Machiavellian streak who is more than capable of causing problems if he doesn’t feel he gets his dues. And that was clearly part of the equation in his departure. As the past week has shown, even if one side of the negotiation believes they are in an impregnable position there’s always the danger of an external factor changing the game.
Just look at some of the moves made elsewhere in the driver market. In recent times, Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris have all agreed new long-term deals. Granted, it’s easier for Red Bull and, to a lesser extent, Ferrari to convince a driver to sign up given their performance, but McLaren ensured it has installed some level of protection for Norris’s services – subject to whatever break clauses might exist. And if you are playing contractual games, make sure you have a secure fallback position.
Drivers do make a difference, whether that’s in winning a championship or just missing out, clinching fourth place in the constructors’ championship or not, or even the success of a much-vaunted 100-race plan. Alpine should be particular cognisant of that given last year it finished ahead of AlphaTauri in the constructors’ championship purely because of its stronger driver line up – with a similar pattern repeated in its battle with McLaren this year.
Alpine isn’t the first team to get caught out and it won’t be the last. It’s the blend of human and machine that makes motorsport so fascinating and complex. The driver is a crucial component that ties everything together in the cockpit. If you’ve got a problem with a part, you can redesign it, study in, put it on a shaker rig – any one of a number of ways to fix a problem. What makes them difficult is they are human beings.
And so is everyone else involved in the negotiations between team and driver. Which is all the more reason to make sure you get the job done at the earliest opportunity, just as you would with any other critical component.
F1 teams need to stop taking needless driver contract risks - The Race (the-race.com)
F1 TEAMS NEED TO STOP TAKING NEEDLESS DRIVER CONTRACT RISKS
Aug 9 2022
By Edd Straw
Formula 1 has always been about the fusion of car and driver, with the individual between the engine and front wheels the critical component when it comes to exploiting the performance potential of the machinery.
That’s why it’s always baffling when an F1 team is laissez-faire in ensuring it has the best quality possible of this key component.
Taking risks with drivers in a seller’s market should be avoided. But that’s what Alpine on the driver front did by assuming Fernando Alonso would eventually accept a contract with no assurances of his place beyond 2023, which had the knock-on effect of at the very least making Oscar Piastri believe he had a window of opportunity to go elsewhere.
Alpine is not the first team to have been caught out when it comes to drivers and that could have a significant negative impact on its 2023 season and Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi’s 100-race plan, which started counting down at the beginning of the season.
It’s inconceivable a team would take such risks with the supply of any other car component. F1 operations invest significantly in ensuring design and production times are pushed to the limit to get parts onto the car as quickly as possible. In doing so, there’s a compound gain with downstream parts also arriving more quickly. Therefore, hanging around when it comes to such things is a no-no.
And yet drivers are not always seen in the same way. That’s bizarre given the influence they can have on performance. The car itself, combined with the immutable laws of physics, defines the ultimate performance potential but it is the driver that must translate that into real-world laptimes. That’s not just over a qualifying lap, but also over a race distance.
But the driver’s sphere of influence is bigger than that. They feed into the development direction and in some ways define it. For example, Max Verstappen’s capacity to deal with a car that is faster but trickier to drive raises the performance ceiling for Red Bull. And every driver will set that ceiling in a different place and hit it when confronted with different characteristics.
Drivers also have a profound influence on the more intangible aspects. Every single member of the team looks to the drivers to exploit that performance and if they feel they can be confident in the person in the cockpit, that has a positive effect. After all, if you have a driver in the car who is giving away three tenths of a second, that’s hardly a powerful motivating factor.
The drivers are the only component in an entire F1 team through which everything travels in some way or another. It’s through their skill, their control and finesse with the throttle, brake and steering wheel, as well as their mental strength and capacity, that the potential of the car is exploited.
Yes, drivers are ten-a-penny. Getting hold of a driver who will do an adequate job in F1 is not difficult even at a time when opportunities for seat time are so limited. But the difference that the driver can make is significant, not just in terms of their performances on track and all-round contribution to the team but also their wider commercial value. Those difference makers are in far shorter supply.
But there are two problems with drivers. Firstly, they are human beings and therefore by their very nature more capricious to deal with than the rest of the components of the car. Secondly, they are expensive. Those two factors mean that you’re dealing with two very powerful factors – ego and money. It’s the same when it comes to the decision makers, which makes for a dangerous mix.
There’s always the chance Alonso would have walked away from Alpine and perhaps he’d have strung out the negotiations whatever the terms on offer were if this Aston Martin move had been brewing for some time, but getting pen on paper should have been a top priority. Doubly so given Alonso is a canny operator not without a Machiavellian streak who is more than capable of causing problems if he doesn’t feel he gets his dues. And that was clearly part of the equation in his departure. As the past week has shown, even if one side of the negotiation believes they are in an impregnable position there’s always the danger of an external factor changing the game.
Just look at some of the moves made elsewhere in the driver market. In recent times, Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris have all agreed new long-term deals. Granted, it’s easier for Red Bull and, to a lesser extent, Ferrari to convince a driver to sign up given their performance, but McLaren ensured it has installed some level of protection for Norris’s services – subject to whatever break clauses might exist. And if you are playing contractual games, make sure you have a secure fallback position.
Drivers do make a difference, whether that’s in winning a championship or just missing out, clinching fourth place in the constructors’ championship or not, or even the success of a much-vaunted 100-race plan. Alpine should be particular cognisant of that given last year it finished ahead of AlphaTauri in the constructors’ championship purely because of its stronger driver line up – with a similar pattern repeated in its battle with McLaren this year.
Alpine isn’t the first team to get caught out and it won’t be the last. It’s the blend of human and machine that makes motorsport so fascinating and complex. The driver is a crucial component that ties everything together in the cockpit. If you’ve got a problem with a part, you can redesign it, study in, put it on a shaker rig – any one of a number of ways to fix a problem. What makes them difficult is they are human beings.
And so is everyone else involved in the negotiations between team and driver. Which is all the more reason to make sure you get the job done at the earliest opportunity, just as you would with any other critical component.
F1 teams need to stop taking needless driver contract risks - The Race (the-race.com)
SZAFNAUER THINKS ALONSO’S MOVING DOWN THE GRID. IS HE RIGHT?
24 hours ago
By Scott Mitchell and Matt Beer
One of the ironies of Fernando Alonso’s abrupt rejection of Alpine for Aston Martin was that the man having to front up to the world about Alpine’s stance on it had so recently moved in the opposite direction. And not in the most convivial of circumstances.
Alpine Formula 1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer spent just over 12 seasons at what’s now Aston Martin across its Force India, Racing Point and then Aston guises.
It ended when it became clear to Szafnauer following ex-McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh’s arrival as group CEO that “the management structure was going to be such that I didn’t have the influence that I thought I should have”.
That was perhaps the most diplomatic of Szafnauer’s descriptions of the situation. A more direct version was: “I was told, ‘Yeah, you used to be able to run the team, but you’re not running it anymore’.”
Given all Szafnauer had done to guide the team through the dark days around the transition from the Vijay Mallya era to the Lawrence Stroll era, and what a respectable underdog podium finisher it had become through the 2010s under his co-leadership after the largely embarrassing grind of its final Jordan years and short-lived Midland/Spyker era, you could forgive him for being a touch bitter.
And when he was asked in the wake of Alonso’s decision what he made of that move and whether Alonso was leaving for “a better team”, you could’ve forgiven Szafnauer for just holding up a copy of the F1 constructors’ championship standings that right now show Alpine leading the best of the rest crowd in fourth on 99 points and Aston Martin in a woeful ninth place on 20 points, still only limping slowly towards AlphaTauri just ahead even though AlphaTauri last scored a point in early June.
Instead, he provided a carefully balanced argument and some evidence.
“I know both teams well,” Szafnauer began, “I think because I spent 12 years at the other team, I know them better than I know all of the individuals here just yet.
“And I know since I left in December, they’ve hired some more people, some of which I was a part of recruiting including Dan Fellows [ex-Red Bull] and Eric Blandin from Mercedes.
“So I know what they’re trying to do and I know the people that are there and I know this team here.
“And both teams have great potential, but as we sit here today, this team is performing at a much higher level.
“It’s hard to predict the future, but in the near future this team will continue to perform at that level, if not better.
“We have plans in place here to get better, we have an internal programme called mountain climber and that’s for other reasons, but that’s to hire an additional 75 people in strategic areas that will help improve the capabilities of this team.
“And along with the 75 people, there’s also tools that we are improving now, some new simulation tools, a new simulator, expanded capacity of manufacturing, some upgrades to our windtunnel, all with the focus on being able to win in 100 races.
“Those things are still happening here and they’re happening fast, we’re already at a level of 850 people here.
“So I’m confident that we can out-do the team that Fernando’s going to in the time period he will be there.”
A strong argument. But the fact is that predicting the relative form of Aston Martin and Alpine across 2023-25 is mainly about deciphering whose grand promises of investment and expansion have the most grounding in reality, and – perhaps more importantly – which will be best at making all these new resources work smoothly together and then executing competently on track.
Both teams’ peaks came when they were nimble and brilliantly effective pure racing teams upstaging rivals that they probably shouldn’t have upstaged but were able to out-think and wrong-foot. For what’s now Alpine, that happened in its mid-1990s Benetton/Michael Schumacher championship years and its mid-2000s Renault/Alonso championship years. Aston Martin’s equivalent peak was much lower – Jordan’s unlikely 1999 title tilt (pictured above) – but had a similar air about it.
They’ve both hit lows in which they all-but-collapsed, and are now rebuilding and expanding with gigantic ambition, but not a huge amount to show for it yet – especially Aston Martin, though Alpine isn’t having to go through the same complete factory replacement process and it’s got a three-year headstart over Aston Martin in its journey from a financial nadir to rebirth under a different owner.
Both are early in new eras under new guises and with different figures at the top. Right now we can only go on hunches and personal judgement when mulling whether either or both will squander all this effort with Toyota-style underperformance, or could emulate the trajectory ‘Team Brackley’ took when Mercedes poured resources in.
Perhaps the only certainty is that when you’re on the kind of path Alpine and Aston Martin are both on now, you could really do with having in your car a vastly experienced double F1 champion with ferocious amounts of motivation, supreme racecraft and apparent invincibility when it comes to the potential ability-dimming effects of age.
Szafnauer may be right that Alpine can outperform Aston Martin next year and beyond if they have comparable driver line-ups. What he needs to urgently do now is make sure Alpine finds a driver that can compensate for the degree of boost the Alonso factor will give Aston Martin.
Szafnauer thinks Alonso's moving down the grid. Is he right? - The Race (the-race.com)
SZAFNAUER THINKS ALONSO’S MOVING DOWN THE GRID. IS HE RIGHT?
24 hours ago
By Scott Mitchell and Matt Beer
One of the ironies of Fernando Alonso’s abrupt rejection of Alpine for Aston Martin was that the man having to front up to the world about Alpine’s stance on it had so recently moved in the opposite direction. And not in the most convivial of circumstances.
Alpine Formula 1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer spent just over 12 seasons at what’s now Aston Martin across its Force India, Racing Point and then Aston guises.
It ended when it became clear to Szafnauer following ex-McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh’s arrival as group CEO that “the management structure was going to be such that I didn’t have the influence that I thought I should have”.
That was perhaps the most diplomatic of Szafnauer’s descriptions of the situation. A more direct version was: “I was told, ‘Yeah, you used to be able to run the team, but you’re not running it anymore’.”
Given all Szafnauer had done to guide the team through the dark days around the transition from the Vijay Mallya era to the Lawrence Stroll era, and what a respectable underdog podium finisher it had become through the 2010s under his co-leadership after the largely embarrassing grind of its final Jordan years and short-lived Midland/Spyker era, you could forgive him for being a touch bitter.
And when he was asked in the wake of Alonso’s decision what he made of that move and whether Alonso was leaving for “a better team”, you could’ve forgiven Szafnauer for just holding up a copy of the F1 constructors’ championship standings that right now show Alpine leading the best of the rest crowd in fourth on 99 points and Aston Martin in a woeful ninth place on 20 points, still only limping slowly towards AlphaTauri just ahead even though AlphaTauri last scored a point in early June.
Instead, he provided a carefully balanced argument and some evidence.
“I know both teams well,” Szafnauer began, “I think because I spent 12 years at the other team, I know them better than I know all of the individuals here just yet.
“And I know since I left in December, they’ve hired some more people, some of which I was a part of recruiting including Dan Fellows [ex-Red Bull] and Eric Blandin from Mercedes.
“So I know what they’re trying to do and I know the people that are there and I know this team here.
“And both teams have great potential, but as we sit here today, this team is performing at a much higher level.
“It’s hard to predict the future, but in the near future this team will continue to perform at that level, if not better.
“We have plans in place here to get better, we have an internal programme called mountain climber and that’s for other reasons, but that’s to hire an additional 75 people in strategic areas that will help improve the capabilities of this team.
“And along with the 75 people, there’s also tools that we are improving now, some new simulation tools, a new simulator, expanded capacity of manufacturing, some upgrades to our windtunnel, all with the focus on being able to win in 100 races.
“Those things are still happening here and they’re happening fast, we’re already at a level of 850 people here.
“So I’m confident that we can out-do the team that Fernando’s going to in the time period he will be there.”
A strong argument. But the fact is that predicting the relative form of Aston Martin and Alpine across 2023-25 is mainly about deciphering whose grand promises of investment and expansion have the most grounding in reality, and – perhaps more importantly – which will be best at making all these new resources work smoothly together and then executing competently on track.
Both teams’ peaks came when they were nimble and brilliantly effective pure racing teams upstaging rivals that they probably shouldn’t have upstaged but were able to out-think and wrong-foot. For what’s now Alpine, that happened in its mid-1990s Benetton/Michael Schumacher championship years and its mid-2000s Renault/Alonso championship years. Aston Martin’s equivalent peak was much lower – Jordan’s unlikely 1999 title tilt (pictured above) – but had a similar air about it.
They’ve both hit lows in which they all-but-collapsed, and are now rebuilding and expanding with gigantic ambition, but not a huge amount to show for it yet – especially Aston Martin, though Alpine isn’t having to go through the same complete factory replacement process and it’s got a three-year headstart over Aston Martin in its journey from a financial nadir to rebirth under a different owner.
Both are early in new eras under new guises and with different figures at the top. Right now we can only go on hunches and personal judgement when mulling whether either or both will squander all this effort with Toyota-style underperformance, or could emulate the trajectory ‘Team Brackley’ took when Mercedes poured resources in.
Perhaps the only certainty is that when you’re on the kind of path Alpine and Aston Martin are both on now, you could really do with having in your car a vastly experienced double F1 champion with ferocious amounts of motivation, supreme racecraft and apparent invincibility when it comes to the potential ability-dimming effects of age.
Szafnauer may be right that Alpine can outperform Aston Martin next year and beyond if they have comparable driver line-ups. What he needs to urgently do now is make sure Alpine finds a driver that can compensate for the degree of boost the Alonso factor will give Aston Martin.
Szafnauer thinks Alonso's moving down the grid. Is he right? - The Race (the-race.com)
He’s not been backward in coming forward with talking up his own performances, but Alonso’s body of work supports his claims in 2022. He’s missed out on some results to reliability problems – and cost himself in both Miami and Canada – but overall he’s operated at a high level all season and been the stronger Alpine driver despite Ocon’s bigger points haul, particularly when it comes to race day. Depending on how generous you are, Alonso can be said to have lost 30-50 points to problems outside of his control. Another season of being relentlessly, typically Alonso.
Edd Straw's 2022 mid-season F1 driver ratings - The Race (the-race.com)
仍在TOP 5里，围场评价护体有。
He’s not been backward in coming forward with talking up his own performances, but Alonso’s body of work supports his claims in 2022. He’s missed out on some results to reliability problems – and cost himself in both Miami and Canada – but overall he’s operated at a high level all season and been the stronger Alpine driver despite Ocon’s bigger points haul, particularly when it comes to race day. Depending on how generous you are, Alonso can be said to have lost 30-50 points to problems outside of his control. Another season of being relentlessly, typically Alonso.
Edd Straw's 2022 mid-season F1 driver ratings - The Race (the-race.com)
仍在TOP 5里，围场评价护体有。
