Alpine will be hoping that further major upgrades to the Flyaway Race after the summer break will help them recover from a slow start to the season and get them on the right track for 2025.
Alpine have only just started earning points after five races in the current campaign, and after 14 events they are still eighth in the Constructors’ Championship with just 11 points.
But there have been recent signs of recovery at Enstone, with Flavio Briatore returning to the team he once ran as chief adviser and Oliver Oakes replacing Bruno Farmin as team principal after the Dutch Grand Prix.
In the final race before the summer break, the team debuted the latest updated parts package for the A524 at Spa, with Esteban Ocon scoring a points-scoring ninth place at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The plan now is to implement another comprehensive upgrade in time for the final long distance race of the campaign, which will also help to establish the foundation and direction for the upcoming year when the technical rules and regulations are not expected to change significantly.
“This was the first step in the pipeline,” said McLaren’s newly appointed executive technical director David Sanchez, of the new components that were unveiled at the recent race.
“We’ve got another one coming up, which should be pretty big and that’ll be the basis for next year. We’ll be doing more on the car this year, for sure,” he revealed, adding that it will be done “a couple of races after the break.”
Sanchez insisted that a two-stage plan for 2024 was always included in the 2024 approach after initially struggling with overweight vehicles.
“We’ve been working on this package since day one,” he said of the spa package. “The other packages are extension packages that allow you to go a little further and spend a little more time on it.”
Sanchez said the team is finally out of the troubleshooting phase and can focus on performance upgrades.
“The biggest problem is that everyone is looking for more downforce and trying to engineer something beyond what you see on the current car,” he said. “This package is designed primarily to give you more downforce, but also to give you a little bit more top speed.”
Sanchez himself joined Alpine in May after a brief spell at McLaren, which ended early by mutual consent as the company’s structure changed and he could not find a role that suited his expertise and experience.
Before that, Sanchez spent a long time at Ferrari as a designer and head of vehicle concepts. At Alpine, he oversees Enstone’s technical department, with overall responsibility for performance, engineering and aerodynamics.
Sanchez hasn’t had much of a chance to have a major impact on the team’s plans this season or next, but he’s clearly watching closely to see how things unfold when the rules and regulations change significantly in 2026.
“From an infrastructure standpoint, the team was already well on its way to planning,” he acknowledged. “But we looked at some things together to see if we needed to prioritize some things over others.
“If you look at where we are now, the plan we have, and ’26 and beyond, we’re in a good place,” he continued. “It’s more about getting everything right now, with this car, with the next car, and building confidence in the team.”
Although not official, it is widely believed that Alpine will ditch Renault engines in 2026 and use Mercedes customer units instead. Another thing that is currently unknown is the driver line-up for next season and beyond.
Pierre Gasly is still under contract with the team, but current team-mate Esteban Ocon will leave Enstone for Haas at the end of the season, leaving a spot on the grid.
Alpine reserve driver Jack Doohan is seen as the most likely candidate, but current Mercedes reserve driver Mick Schumacher is also understood to be in the running, along with others.
The announcement at the end of July that Pamin would be leaving his position as principal and Hitec F2 and F2 team owner Ochs would take over at Zandvoort means there could be plenty of change in the coming months as Alpine looks to rebuild.
