Alpine team principal Bruno Famin admitted that Alpine is still on the back foot compared to other engine manufacturers as it cannot extract enough power from its power unit.
During the 2023 season, Alpine appeared to be struggling in terms of top-speed performance against Ferrari, Mercedes, and Honda engines. This issue will probably be portrayed in the upcoming season, as the regulations do not allow teams to work as much on the power unit.
“We were lacking on the recovery side, and we are still lacking,” said Famine. “Because with the regulation the way it is, we are trying to improve that because we can homologate new software per year now.
“This is something we have worked on to try and reduce the gap a bit, but there will be no major differences with the previous year because the power unit is frozen. We can play a bit on the MGU-H, but that’s all.”
Despite not being able to completely change its engine and recover as much performance as it would like, Alpine still tried to improve how the power generated by the engine gets delivered to the crankshaft and the wheels.
Matt Harman, Alpine technical director, stated that the team’s goal is to make sure that “every single work done by the power unit is delivered to the crankshaft and rear wheels.”