Alpine Renault A523 speculation thread

[Blackout]

"The new car is to be visibly different from its predecessor, with significant changes, especially at the rear."
But it will be based on the same concept. (they tested another concept but kept this one)
https://auto-motor-und-sport.de/formel- ... utes-heck/

A522A (Winter) vs A522B (Silverstone)

[Blackout]

My predictions for A523:

1- bigger front wing.

A522 FW is one of the smallest, if not the smallest (short shord line, quite low camber, small surface), the drivers had too much understeer in many tracks, that's why Alpine tended to put a smaller rear wing in some tracks after Fp1 and onwards.



2- higher front suspension wishbones.

A522 has one of the lowest front bottom wishbones on the grid. So they could be raised in 2023 like many cars in 2022 and be used to downwash the FW air towards floor mouth a bit more.


Original pics from Nextgen-Auto

3- pushed back cockpit

Alpine could take inspiration from RB here (the most extreme car in this regard) and push the cockpit rearwards in order to narrow down the boat area and have more space for the tunnels laterally. They could push the lower impact structures backwards too to have more tunnel space vertically. And they could use the boat and the floor more as a big storage space like RB, to empty down the sidepod undercuts and have larger ones.


Original pics from Nextgen-Auto







In this case, Alpine could lengthen the wheelbase. Theirs is shorter than RB or Merc, so after having lengthened the monocoque, they could alter the wheelbase to keep the weight distribution the same.

But I wont be surprised if Alpine retains the same tub and Gbox as 522. We're talking about Enstone here.

4- bigger RB-like sidepod undercuts?

A522 had a different undercut compared to the other early 3 ramp-shaped-sidepods cars. The A522 front undercut is more classic and is turning air more aggressively (less aggressive than Ferrari, MCL, Williams) towards the floor edge wing to generate some additional floor front DF (hence the smaller FW?)
A522B sidepods front undercuts became a hybrid later.





5- Will Alpine dig its sidepod top channels / water slides further?

Alpine could remove that crest above the exhausts by replacing the pipes with more horizontal manifolds, and have a straighter path for the air towards the rear of the car, similar to MP426.. but I doubt it. That crest/hump is probably beneficial and attracts more air in the hill by creating a lower pressure zone (lift)...

Mclaren


A522A vs B


To be continued

[Vanja #66]

Nice analysis Blackout! All those points make a lot of sense.

[Blackout]

Nice analysis Blackout! All those points make a lot of sense.

Thank you

[AR3-GP]

Feb 16th Launch date. 2 days after the Ferrari.

[GM7]

Just found a french TV report about the Alpine team, at the end of the video we can see a 2022 era car in the wind tunnel. Don't know if it is the 2023 car.

https://youtu.be/JMRu2FIJEaU

https://youtu.be/grn8q07TLmw

[K1Plus]

From what I see visually, at least in the video of the simulation, the car looks a little less understeery.

[Blackout]

It's an early A522, based on the winter beam wing, diffuser and sidepod intakes

[Blackout]

"We've taken quite a considerable amount of weight out of next year's car, and some of that is to do with understanding the cars boundary conditions more, so understanding some of the loadings, or the suspension.

"We've been able to do some of this just through clever engineering and different systems that we've put in the car to reduce the weight.

"I'm pretty sure that there won't be a car on the grid next year that's so over the weight limit, I'm hopeful that our car will be quite considerably under so we can actually move some ballast around." Matt Harman

https://racingnews365.com/alpine-share- ... rn-f1-cars

[AR3-GP]

"We've taken quite a considerable amount of weight out of next year's car, and some of that is to do with understanding the cars boundary conditions more, so understanding some of the loadings, or the suspension.

"We've been able to do some of this just through clever engineering and different systems that we've put in the car to reduce the weight.

"I'm pretty sure that there won't be a car on the grid next year that's so over the weight limit, I'm hopeful that our car will be quite considerably under so we can actually move some ballast around." Matt Harman

https://racingnews365.com/alpine-share- ... rn-f1-cars

Fascinating. "considerably under" is a big change from last year. It sounds like they couldn't do it last year because of the budget cap.

[Blackout]

Yes and according to Permane, they were within a couple of kilos of the minimum weight, around Silverstone... but it must be costly and inefficient, as Harman said, to try to chase down the remaining 2000 grams (the harder ones) in the second half of the season... and for what? 0.064s?
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alpi ... /10344371/
Better wait for the off-season and take the opportunity to incorporate these weight saving changes with the other changes of the new car and try to gain much more than 2 kilos, in order to reap the other associated benefits of an 'underweight' car and gain more than 0.06 : )

[diffuser]

Yes and according to Permane, they were within a couple of kilos of the minimum weight, around Silverstone... but it must be costly and inefficient, as Harman said, to try to chase down the remaining 2000 grams (the harder ones) in the second half of the season... and for what? 0.064s?
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alpi ... /10344371/
Better wait for the off-season and take the opportunity to incorporate these weight saving changes with the other changes of the new car and try to gain much more than 2 kilos, in order to reap the other associated benefits of an 'underweight' car and gain more than 0.06 : )

https://i.imgur.com/O15BuCe.jpg

Plus the 2023 car weight minium is 796KGs, down a further 2 KGs from 2022.

[Big Tea]

Yes and according to Permane, they were within a couple of kilos of the minimum weight, around Silverstone... but it must be costly and inefficient, as Harman said, to try to chase down the remaining 2000 grams (the harder ones) in the second half of the season... and for what? 0.064s?
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alpi ... /10344371/
Better wait for the off-season and take the opportunity to incorporate these weight saving changes with the other changes of the new car and try to gain much more than 2 kilos, in order to reap the other associated benefits of an 'underweight' car and gain more than 0.06 : )

https://i.imgur.com/O15BuCe.jpg

Plus the 2023 car weight minium is 796KGs, down a further 2 KGs from 2022.

Is it good to have a minimum weight all the teams seem to (easily) achieve, or would it be better to have them looking for the last 10kg over a period of years? There are things that have to be separate, such as safety and driver equalisation, but the tec race that could go in that last 10kg could be as frantic as wing study and could help material and design development.

[diffuser]

Yes and according to Permane, they were within a couple of kilos of the minimum weight, around Silverstone... but it must be costly and inefficient, as Harman said, to try to chase down the remaining 2000 grams (the harder ones) in the second half of the season... and for what? 0.064s?
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alpi ... /10344371/
Better wait for the off-season and take the opportunity to incorporate these weight saving changes with the other changes of the new car and try to gain much more than 2 kilos, in order to reap the other associated benefits of an 'underweight' car and gain more than 0.06 : )

https://i.imgur.com/O15BuCe.jpg

Take the .032 number with a grain of salt, it's an average. It doesn't take into account tire wear. You'll start off at almost identitical lap times to the lighter you. The heavier version of the car will continue to fall further and further behind with every lap. After 20 laps, the lap time difference will be much larger than .032. It would effect pitstop startegy. That can be very painful at tracks like the french GP, where pit stop times are very long and tire wear is high. It might force Alpine to run at a slower laptime to get to a pit window. It can also force Alpine to a harder and slower tire just to prevent an extra pit stop.

[Venturiation]

I feel the A523 will be a beast and will beat Mercedes for P3