The 2024 F1 season at Alpine has certainly had a difficult and ‘challenging’ start. Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly started from last place at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, but were only able to move up a few places due to struggles with Valtteri Bottas and Logan Sargent. However, they finished outside the points and the team’s challenger for the 2024 season, A524, appears to be lagging behind the pack.
Changes have come to the team this week, with Alpine announcing a reshuffle of its technical team, with the departure of technical director Matt Herman and head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer. The team will now leverage his three-pronged approach with the newly created specialized technical roles of Technical Director (Performance), Technical Director (Aerodynamics) and Technical Director (Engineering). All three will report directly to team principal Bruno Famin.
Despite the early struggles, teams and drivers remain positive. Among them is Ocon, who helped preview this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Ocon took viewers on a virtual lap of the Jeddah Corniche circuit, as well as sharing his thoughts on Bahrain and his outlook for the upcoming season.
“We knew it would be difficult to enter Bahrain with a completely new car, but in the end that proved to be the case once both cars reached the finish line. It was relatively uneventful for us and we couldn’t have done better from our starting position and our pace,” Ocon said at the team’s media preview. “We have to put this race behind us and try to react quickly. We know there are no miracles in this sport and it will take time to improve the situation. But the team I know the whole thing is very committed and motivated to turn things around.”
“The good thing about Bahrain was that we had a clean race and it was important to collect a lot of data. With back-to-back races there is not a lot of time between races, so we looked closely at the data and already We need to see what lessons we can bring to Jeddah,” Ocon added. “Now that we have completed a full race, it is useful to review and analyze how we compare to other teams.” [tire] performance.It was very close [qualifying] Our last time was less than 0.150 seconds from Q2, so we hope to be close to the other teams this weekend in Jeddah. ”
As for the Saudi circuit, Ocon is looking forward to the demands of the Jeddah Corniche circuit. You can take a virtual lap with Ocon here:
Ocon also shared his thoughts on Jeddah during the preview.
“The Jeddah circuit is a fun track to drive. It’s a very fast, very physical course, and it’s a street track, so it requires a lot of concentration over the entire distance of the race,” Ocon said. . “Also, along with the road surface, [tire] Compounds typically have low degradation. This means the race will be more like a sprint than a marathon. This, combined with the high speed of the track, makes the Jeddah circuit a great test of the physical preparation we have built up over the winter. It will be interesting to see how the A524 reacts with different layouts and hopefully it will do better than Bahrain. ”
The alpine driver has enjoyed success in Jeddah throughout his career. Like Gasly, Ocon has scored points in each of the three races held at the Jeddah Corniche circuit. As Alpine stated in their media preview:[b]Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon have a 100% points scoring record in the three F1 races held in Jeddah so far. Ferrari is the only team on this weekend’s grid with two drivers with such records. ”
As the team pointed out, Ocon is one of only six drivers in F1 history to lead the Saudi Grand Prix, and he has done so in the first race of 2021. This year, he missed out on the podium by just 0.102 seconds, starting in 9th place and settling for a 4th place finish.
Saturday will also be a milestone for Ocon. It will be the 135th Grand Prix start of his career, making him one of the 50 most experienced drivers in F1 history.
The Saudi circuit will come alive on Thursday with the first of two practice sessions. For Alpine, we hope to make some improvements this weekend and start moving forward on the grid.
