Alpine Renault teammates Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon embrace following Gasly’s podium at the 2023 Belgium Grand Prix Sprint Race (Source: Alpine Cars)
Alpine Renault in 2023
Alpine Renault left 2022 with high hopes after capturing fourth place in the Constructors Championship to take the fight to Mercedes and Ferrari and, hopefully, Red Bull Racing at the top of the grid.
However, a tumultuous silly season and off-season that saw Fernando Alonso move to Aston Martin and now-former Alpine academy driver Oscar Piastri’s shock move to McLaren could have been seen as a harbinger of what was to come in 2023.
A driver change for Alpine with the exit of Alonso brought in Pierre Gasly to team up with fellow countryman Esteban Ocon, who had a pair of hungry drivers looking to fight for podiums across the season. Furthermore, Alpine worked on gaining monetary investments that included a bump from Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s buying a stake in the team.
While the team’s highs had both drivers finish on the podium once for each driver during the season, inconsistency plagued the team through the entire year, never allowing them to showcase their speed truly. But on top of the inconsistencies, leadership changes in the team became a major storyline.
Heading into the summer break in 2023, Alpine announced that Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer and Sporting Director Alan Permane would leave after the Belgium Grand Prix weekend. The personnel moves were seen as a way to get the ball moving to turn things around after starting the season so flat.
The inconsistencies meant that Alpine Renault was jumped by a surprisingly strong Aston Martin and a bounceback season from McLaren that saw the French manufacturer based in Enstone finish in sixth place in the Constructors Standings, obtaining 120 points through the year.
Thankfully for Alpine, keeping Ocon and Gasly plus consistent influxes of investments from Celebrities (from those like Kansas City Chiefs stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce to Golf superstar Rory McIlroy) means that 2024 has hopes to be better, especially with consistency.
Pierre Gasly (11th in points with 62 points)
Leaving the Red Bull Racing fold and joining Alpine in 2023 meant it was time for Gasly to prove himself on the grid even further, even going up against a fellow countryman as his teammate. Moving from AlphaTauri to a team that had collected fourth in the Constructors championship the year prior, there seemed to be an outside chance that he could occasionally contend for wins.
However, Alpine’s inconsistencies only meant that Gasly could compete for podiums only every so often. His first podium came during the Belgium Sprint Race, taking advantage of changing conditions. After the summer break, he secured a Grand Prix podium in a masterful drive in the treacherous conditions late in the Dutch Grand Prix, taking advantage of good track position after the red flag due to the heavy rain.
But where Gasly truly shined was in qualifying, as he outqualified his teammate 14-8 by the end of the year. Reasonable qualifying efforts in Spain to qualify fourth and fifth for the first Las Vegas Grand Prix were the highlights of Gasly’s qualifying in his first year at Alpine.
Pierre Gasly (FRA) Alpine F1 Team celebrates his third position on the podium. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 14, Dutch Grand Prix, Sunday 27th August 2023. Zandvoort, Netherlands. (Source: Alpine Renault F1 Team)
Esteban Ocon (12th in points with 58 points)
Ocon returned to Alpine in 2023 after being one of the drivers who brought home the fourth-place constructors finish the previous year. Contending for podiums and victories was the highest priority, but the team’s inconsistencies were displayed throughout Ocon’s year, almost specifically to him.
The highest point of Ocon’s year came at the Monaco Grand Prix, which, after picking up a solid fourth in qualifying the day before that, got him promoted up a spot due to a penalty to a driver ahead of him. Ocon was in good position to either fight for the win against Max Verstappen or his former teammate Alonso.
After the first round of pit stops and holding off a hard-charging Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, then surviving the rain, Ocon brought home his Alpine to finish third in a stellar podium finish.
Although Ocon led Alpine Renault in race results head-to-head, 10-9, he also suffered the most inconsistent finishes that kept him from finishing higher than his teammate. Between gathering handfuls of penalties during race days that set and broke his records for penalties in a race, Ocon also tied for the most DNFs in 2023 with seven through the entire year that kept him from getting the maximum points he could get.
Esteban Ocon (FRA) Alpine F1 Team celebrates his third position on the podium. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 7, Monaco Grand Prix, Sunday 28th May 2023. Monte Carlo, Monaco. (Source: Alpine Renault F1 Team)
Looking ahead to 2024
Alpine Renault’s most significant battle in 2024 is solving the consistency problem they were plagued with in 2023. Going from fourth to sixth in the standings in just a year and jumping by their mid-pack rivals was a kick in the gut. A line-up hungry to win with influential investors should make it a priority for the team to bounce back in 2024.
Consistency from the team and drivers hopefully will mean that Alpine Renault will be able to take the fight for the top of the midfield of the grid and become more of a podium contender in 2024.
