The fourth-placed team of last year’s championship Alpine is the last to present its new car for 2023, the A523, in two different color combinations, with which they hope to at least maintain fourth place in the standings and hopefully get even closer to the top three.
Alpine beat McLaren in the fight for fourth place last year thanks to a faster car, although reliability was their biggest flaw which allowed McLaren to stay in the fight until the last race of the championship.
Although a break into the top three teams this season is not very realistic, the team has an imperative to at least get close to third place and continue their long-term goal of winning the championship in 100 races starting from the 2022 season.
Fernando Alonso left the team and moved to Aston Martin and he was replaced by Pierre Gasly, who together with Esteban Ocon forms a completely French driver line-up in the French team.
One of the biggest changes to the car is the change from a pull rod rear suspension concept to a push rod, motivated by weight loss and better air flow above the diffuser while the car also has redesigned internal rear suspension parts to give engineers more setup options during the race weekend.
“We have to take a step closer to winning the championship, which is what we wanted to do in 100 races,” said Otmar Szafnauer, team boss.
“Those 100 races started in early 2022, so we’re less than 80 races from now to that goal.”
“We have to do the same, but we have to be closer to third place than fifth. Even if we stay fourth, we have to improve.”
Alpine already tested the new car at Silverstone on Monday – first Ocon drove nine laps, and after that Gasly drove another eight, so they spent the maximum allowed 100 kilometers during the day for filming day.
The next opportunity to test the new A523 will be during the three-day pre-season test in Bahrain (February 23 – 25), followed by the first race of the season one week later, which will have a record 23 races.
ALPINE A523
