Laurent Rossi, Alpine’s CEO, has spoken very bluntly about his dissatisfaction with his team’s performance so far in 2023.
Alpine has been quite hit-and-miss this year, proving capable of leading the midfield whilst also being vulnerable to falling closer to the back.
The Australian GP is the most obvious low-point for the French outfit this season, missing out on significant points after Pierre Gasly hit into Esteban Ocon.
Otmar Szafnauer tried to take the positives from this race, insisting that Gasly’s performance showed the potential of the A523 machine.
A similar sentiment emerged after the first round in Bahrain, where Szafanuer expressed his confidence that Alpine could still fight for fourth in the standings.
However, speaking ahead of the Miami race weekend, Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi is far less positive in his assessment of 2023 so far:
“It’s disappointing. It’s actually bad. This year started with a flawed performance and flawed delivery.
“It’s obvious that our place in the standings is not worthy of the resources we spend, and we are quite far – very far – from this year’s end goal,” motorsport.com quotes him as saying.
“I’m noting not only an obvious lack of performance and rigour in the delivery.
“But also potentially a state of mind that is not up to this team’s past standards.
“I did not like the first Grand Prix because there was a lot of – I’m sorry for saying this – amateurishness, which led to a result that wasn’t right.”
Rossi’s analysis is evidently critical of Alpine’s performances this year. The CEO seems uninterested in portraying a more positive situation within the team.
These comments are especially damming because of his more macro, large-scale critiques of team Enstone.
Rossi has quite accurately outlined that Alpine – as a manufacturer team – should be significantly further up the field.
The team’s pre-season target of solidifying P4 in the constructors and closing the gap to the front – for many observers – already seemed relatively unambitious.
However, after four rounds, it seems plausible that Alpine will fall short of what seemed a relatively tame goal.
The situation is not all negative, evidenced most recently by Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon’s pace throughout qualifying in Miami.
Unfortunately for the French squad, their stronger weekends are often met with more difficult ones – which is quite typical for a team in the midfield.
Although there are reasons to be optimistic, the pressure seems to be intensifying for Alpine.
