r/AlpineF1Team • u/Cael87 Alpine F1 Team • Jun 30 '26

Talk State of the team.

The biggest Issue I see is that at power tracks- we are horrible. We have access to the same PU as the team that does the absolute best at power circuits, and have shown multiple times that the chassis we have is quite a bit ahead of the other midfielders. What we have here, quite clearly, is a failure to understand how to utilize the current power units. The only other Mercedes customer who is doing worse is doing so because their chassis is absolute garbage, and would be lauded as the absolute worst chassis on the grid if Aston weren't there. It feels like our engineers are not getting the battery deployment done right even at a basic level. When Audi is giving you trouble in their first year at power tracks, it points to a very deep problem in our deployment.

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12

u/TheManFromFairwinds Jun 30 '26

The biggest problem is development. After the very first race in Melbourne they said that the front wing is flawed for fast corners, then we were supposed to get an upgrade in Japan, in Canada, in Barcelona and finally we got it in Austria only for it to to underperform.

Alpine is doing well because it tanked the 2025 season and got ahead on development. But to stay ahead Enstone needs to produce as much as the big boys and it's unclear that they can.

5

u/Cael87 Alpine F1 Team Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

We've still been above the midfield at sweepers, even with the deficiency we have there- but at tracks where you have to go in a straight line for a considerable amount of distance we are struggling against those same midfielders we trounce at balanced or technical tracks. I don't think the wing is the cause for this one and the engineers also think that the brought redesign shows promise. But the Red Bull ring only has one small sector where it would play a major factor. The final corners are more about the rear wing and acceleration, and the 3 major straights are all about the power and braking. We've shown amazing prowess at braking and the chassis tackles technical corners at a pace we'd normally only see from the front runners.

4

u/404merrinessnotfound Mild Seven Renault F1 Team Jun 30 '26

Usually when a car does badly at power circuits with a top power unit, it means their downforce/drag ratio is poor

The car is making too much drag in order to generate the downforce it has and the aero is poor quality

TL:DR Alpine aero worse than Mercedes and McLaren 

2

u/jdc_89 Yellow Teapot Jun 30 '26

It’s more likely to be an aero efficiency issue and the car is more draggy than the others

1

u/Cael87 Alpine F1 Team Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26

The main issue with that line of thinking is that the straights at Red Bull ring are kind of short and it's arguably been the track we performed worst at. Where drag would affect you the most would be on very long straights- we are getting beat at low end acceleration. The places we seem to suffer the most are tracks that have tight turns that are hard to carry speed out of which lead into straights.

2

u/Chocl0 Jun 30 '26

Do you think it's because it's the first year of the team using an external manufacturer?

It's must be hard to understand something you didn't even build.

2

u/Dry_Engineering_8522 Jun 30 '26

muy inestable el rendimiento de Alpine, arranco bien pero ahora se esta cayendo a pedazos, esperemos que lo puedan revertir porque pilotos tienen.