2021 Alpine F1 Team

[Andres125sx]

Yes.

But for some better fortune, he'd have more titles under his belt, that's for sure.

The titles he doesn't have, make the ones he has all the more impressive, he's never won one in a dominant car.

He had dominant tyres, of course. The tyre rule change from 2004 to 2005 outlawing tyre changes totally screwed Ferrari. That helped Alonso immensely. In 2006 he and the Renault were just better than everyone else, especially in the first half of the season. And they had the TMD in the nose that the car was built around and was outlawed in the latter half of 2006, which certainly didn't help Alonso.

But 2005 - 2008 were the years when no one had a dominant car. After the early 2000s that was a refreshing change.

Dominant tyres, wich is arguable, are not the same as a dominant car

I´d say that only finished Ferrari dominance, but didn´t provide any dominance to Renault, they were pretty similar, at some tracks Ferrari was faster, at some others it was Renault.

A dominant car is one wich finish 1-2 more or less consistently, something Renault never managed to do. Anyway this is way OT

[peewon]

Yes.

But for some better fortune, he'd have more titles under his belt, that's for sure.

The titles he doesn't have, make the ones he has all the more impressive, he's never won one in a dominant car.

Alonso is my all time favourite driver. He got screwed at McLaren Act 1, the penalty he got at Hungry for holding Hamilton up should never been called. I don't get the FIA ruling on internal team issues. He should never have left Ferrari. He would have more tittles if he had stayed. On the track he's hard to beat, off the track he makes weird calls.

Listening and reading about past decisions in F1 tells you how politically motivated some of them are.
I cant think of another instance where FIA has stepped in to punish a driver for internal matters but I suspect F1 not having had a British champion for 12 years prior, mightve had something to do with it. (pure speculation on my behalf)

After Max Mosley's death, I came across an article which alluded to the ruling to allow double diffusers (clearly against the spirit of the law) was partly because Mosley wanted to promote a 'small team' in a period of recession and Mosley wanting to stick it to McLaren and Ferrari for various scuffles he had with them previously.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-s ... 77/665477/

[Morteza]

Esteban's birthday gift for Fernando

[Mansell89]

Has there been any further confirmation on the 2022 PU?

Last I read in around March was a possible split turbo concept ready for next year and that they had focussed more on next year performance wise after the Covid delay of regs?

Do we think they’ll reach parity with Honda and Merc ready for the freeze?

Any solid info anywhere?

[diffuser]

Has there been any further confirmation on the 2022 PU?

Last I read in around March was a possible split turbo concept ready for next year and that they had focussed more on next year performance wise after the Covid delay of regs?

Do we think they’ll reach parity with Honda and Merc ready for the freeze?

Any solid info anywhere?

I haven't heard anything new. Certain they've made the decision on PU concept by now. What it is, I don't know.

[Blackout]

Has there been any further confirmation on the 2022 PU?

Last I read in around March was a possible split turbo concept ready for next year and that they had focussed more on next year performance wise after the Covid delay of regs?

Do we think they’ll reach parity with Honda and Merc ready for the freeze?

Any solid info anywhere?

Budkowski mentions it here and confirms some informations (like the fact the 2021 PU and A521 chassis are virtually three seasons old, as I told you many times : P)

“We all have our competitive analysis,” Budkowski noted. “And we have a fairly good idea of where we stack in terms of both power, but also in terms of energy management, and weight and packaging and things like this.
“It’s the same engine we’re using for the third consecutive year, with very, very small changes in 2020 and 2021. It’s a ’19 engine we’re using. And some of our competitors made gains that we haven’t. And to be honest, it’s also the same chassis and the same gearbox as well. So the mechanical base of the car is the same for three years now.
“The choice was driven by the fact that we were planning to introduce all new engine in 2021, together with the new chassis regulations. Chassis regulations have been delayed, we have also delayed the introduction of that new engine to 2022. Because unfortunately, with the factory closures and the working from home requirements we had last year, we were just unable to deliver it for 2021.
“So we’re in a slightly not ideal situation where we had to delay our new power unit, which beyond improvements to propulsive power and energy management, the kind of usual things that make you go quicker on a straight line, has also a new architecture and changes that are designed to address some of our weaknesses compared to our competitors.
“But we didn’t have the resources to re-launch a development programme on this year’s engine, and continue to work on the 2022. So we’ve decided to put all our efforts on ’22. So it’s a strategic decision. I believe it’s the right one. But it’s painful, because as a result this year we lost ground compared to our competitors.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arti ... n-as-proof

The latest news is that the PU technical director, Remi Taffin, left the team shortly before Hungary, following a major reorganisation in Viry and Enstone...

[diffuser]

Has there been any further confirmation on the 2022 PU?

Last I read in around March was a possible split turbo concept ready for next year and that they had focussed more on next year performance wise after the Covid delay of regs?

Do we think they’ll reach parity with Honda and Merc ready for the freeze?

Any solid info anywhere?

Budkowski mentions it here and confirms some informations (like the fact the 2021 PU and A521 chassis are virtually three seasons old, as I told you many times : P)

“We all have our competitive analysis,” Budkowski noted. “And we have a fairly good idea of where we stack in terms of both power, but also in terms of energy management, and weight and packaging and things like this.
“It’s the same engine we’re using for the third consecutive year, with very, very small changes in 2020 and 2021. It’s a ’19 engine we’re using. And some of our competitors made gains that we haven’t. And to be honest, it’s also the same chassis and the same gearbox as well. So the mechanical base of the car is the same for three years now.
“The choice was driven by the fact that we were planning to introduce all new engine in 2021, together with the new chassis regulations. Chassis regulations have been delayed, we have also delayed the introduction of that new engine to 2022. Because unfortunately, with the factory closures and the working from home requirements we had last year, we were just unable to deliver it for 2021.
“So we’re in a slightly not ideal situation where we had to delay our new power unit, which beyond improvements to propulsive power and energy management, the kind of usual things that make you go quicker on a straight line, has also a new architecture and changes that are designed to address some of our weaknesses compared to our competitors.
“But we didn’t have the resources to re-launch a development programme on this year’s engine, and continue to work on the 2022. So we’ve decided to put all our efforts on ’22. So it’s a strategic decision. I believe it’s the right one. But it’s painful, because as a result this year we lost ground compared to our competitors.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arti ... n-as-proof

The latest news is that the PU technical director, Remi Taffin, left the team shortly before Hungary, following a major reorganisation in Viry and Enstone...

His comments about not having decided on which direction to go with the PU structure back in early 2021 (think it was Pre winter tests), left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

[Blackout]

His comments about not having decided on which direction to go with the PU structure back in early 2021 (think it was Pre winter tests), left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Which ones? his comments about the split-turbo, when he said "we're just evaluating that solution"?
Nah, maybe he was just refusing to admit that a simple forum member discovered they are secretly working on a split-turbo just by looking at one photo Viry published
.
viewtopic.php?p=929897#p929897
(top center is the Honda and top right is the Merc - both pics come from F1i magazine/Nicolas Carpentiers)
.

Remi Taffin, Renault F1's engine chief, has confirmed that the team are considering the change of concept.
"The simple answer is yes," Taffin told RacingNews365.com among others. "We could be going down that route… I'm pretty sure you've seen some photos, so I'm not going to lie. We are evaluating it."

[Jambier]

Taffin got fired?

This is a big change if true, he really was here since a while

[Jambier]

Confirmed.

The problem is that this team needs to deliver strongly for 2022

Who to replace Taffin? I hope it will not slow down things for 2022 engine.

It is like this team is still under construction since 2016

[diffuser]

Don't forget, we're going into a PU freeze. They're preparing for the next PU and he probably didn't plan to stick around for that.

My guess would be that next year's PU major redesign is done.

[peewon]

Don't forget, we're going into a PU freeze. They're preparing for the next PU and he probably didn't plan to stick around for that.

My guess would be that next year's PU major redesign is done.

Implementing a major design change to the PU for the 2022 season without real world data could still be tricky. Even more so when you don't have a customer team either. They better get it right in the first go or have someone competent to oversee it.

[Jambier]

Don't forget, we're going into a PU freeze. They're preparing for the next PU and he probably didn't plan to stick around for that.

My guess would be that next year's PU major redesign is done.

Implementing a major design change to the PU for the 2022 season without real world data could still be tricky. Even more so when you don't have a customer team either. They better get it right in the first go or have someone competent to oversee it.

« Reliability » upgrades are allowed.

So you better take risk on performance side and then make it reliable with updates and unleash power rather than be conservative

[RedNEO]

Confirmed.

The problem is that this team needs to deliver strongly for 2022

Who to replace Taffin? I hope it will not slow down things for 2022 engine.

It is like this team is still under construction since 2016

They already signed a lot of engineers from Mercedes last year. I have confidence they will have a strong engine next year. Every team is constantly evolving and getting rid of people shouldn’t be seen as a negative.. to move forwards there needs to be changes .

[RedNEO]

Don't forget, we're going into a PU freeze. They're preparing for the next PU and he probably didn't plan to stick around for that.

My guess would be that next year's PU major redesign is done.

Implementing a major design change to the PU for the 2022 season without real world data could still be tricky. Even more so when you don't have a customer team either. They better get it right in the first go or have someone competent to oversee it.

« Reliability » upgrades are allowed.

So you better take risk on performance side and then make it reliable with updates and unleash power rather than be conservative

That’s one area Renault hasn’t been pushing the envelope recently, especially on the engine side, they need to be more aggressive which might explain the change in leadership.