Formula 1 News: Alpine’s 2024 car no longer overweight

(GMM) Now that its cars are at minimum weight, Alpine’s push to emerge from a deep performance collapse in Formula 1 will take a brief pause as the sport returns to Europe.

Many teams will unveil significant car upgrades for the first race of 2024 on the continent – including Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin and others.

“In the last two races, we have been able to unlock some performance courtesy of our upgrades,” Alpine boss Bruno Famin said this week.

One of the biggest breakthroughs for the Renault-linked team has been successfully getting its badly overweight new car down to the minimum weight limit – having initially been more than 10kg over that limit.

Famin announced: “We will not be bringing any significant upgrades over the next few races, but we keep pushing hard at the factories to improve the car and extract more performance.”

Those efforts are also continuing on the track, with De Zandvoortse Courant newspaper reporting that reserve driver Jack Doohan did a two-day test at the Dutch GP venue on Tuesday and Wednesday in a 2022 car.

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The Australian will be happy with extra kilometers at Alpine, because next season he may take the place of Esteban Ocon, who will sign with Haas F1.

Doohan, son of motorcycle racer Mick Doohan (five-time 500 cc world champion), has few good memories of Zandvoort. Last year he crashed behind the safety car during rain showers on the formation lap of the main race in Formula 2.

These days are not the first kilometers of 21-year-old Doohan in a Formula 1 car. In 2022 he made his debut during free practice for the Mexican Grand Prix.

So far it has been an extremely difficult season for the French team. Drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly only scored one meager World Championship point for Alpine.