Alpine took a ‘bold new approach’ when developing its latest A524 Formula 1 car after a challenging season last year, according to the team’s technical director Matt Harman.
The A524, unveiled on Wednesday, offers several improvements and features over the A523, Alpine’s previous model. This marked a step-back in results for Alpine. The Renault brand, which operates its F1 programme between an engine facility at Viry-Chatillon in France and a factory at Enstone in the United Kingdom, dropped from fourth to sixth in the constructors’ standings after two years of the current ground effect regulations.
Harman explained that Alpine was prompted to ‘look inwards’ as it sought to understand how to reclaim that lost ground. During the A524 launch event, where the actual car was presented alongside Alpine’s new LMDh prototype, he highlighted the key technical areas that needed an overhaul.
‘We started that process originally from concept work back in week 45 of 2022, but also after the first three races of 2023,’ said Harman. ‘We decided to take a bold new approach.
‘It’s a brand-new car from front to back: only the steering wheel survived. We’ve really tried to look at every single area of the car to make sure that we leave no stone unturned.’
The Alpine A524’s chassis was a major focus during the development process. As the team sought control of the mass load and to optimise cooling, significant time and resources were spent on the underside of the visible surfaces. Alpine has tried to make space under the centre of the car to ‘free up volume and space’ for the underfloor channels that generate the downforce-inducing ground effect.
‘We’ve controlled a lot of the thermal behaviour,’ said Harman. ‘For example, we try not to cool the exhausts. Cooling the exhausts actually takes the energy out of them. Taking away the energy from the exhaust means you don’t have as much power at the brake. So we try to make sure that we use our air where we need it, and not where we don’t, like we do everywhere else on the top of the car.’
‘[Regarding the chassis] We must ensure that the driver in the car is comfortable. We also need push the structure and give the underbody the ability to increase flow rate.
‘But, fundamentally, the chassis has been designed to give us the maximum amount of volume for our aerodynamics to express themselves freely in terms of concepts, not only for the launch car, but for the second, third and fourth race upgrades.’
The Alpine A524 features a new front-wing and a nose that is noticeably larger than last year. Alpine also changed the openings of the sidepods from the A523 at launch to a flatter design. The new look is in line with what Alpine did as 2023 developed. The front suspension builds on last year’s concept with some changes, whereas the rear suspension has been subject to a more comprehensive reworking.
‘The kinematics are very different,’ Harman said of the front suspension. ‘The inboard suspension is slightly changed to give us more flexibility and understanding in how we control that.
‘The inboard rear suspension has been completely revised. The outboard suspension has also been left unchanged. We’ve got a brand-new kinematic on the rear suspension that allows us to take an advantage from the manner in which the car behaves under certain conditions around the track. We’ve also made sure that we’ve tried to optimise it aerodynamically. We took a little bit of an aerodynamic hit for taking that kinematic, but we believe we will drive through that.’
Alpine’s 2023 car weighed less than the 798kg minimum stated in the F1 technical regulations, enabling the team to use ballast to adjust the weight distribution at different tracks. Harman has carried on with this philosophy, highlighting that the transmission is one of the key components that have been significantly lighter. The car’s full powertrain system and chassis have completed 3,500km on Alpine’s dyno ahead of pre-season testing this month. Although the team dropped two places, the silver lining was that it had just over 11% more wind-tunnel tests on the A524 to do compared to last year.
Harman admitted that the rear wing was an area in which Alpine ‘could have done a lot better’ last season. Alpine’s upgrade package for Las Vegas, the penultimate race of the 2023 racing season, included elements in the current rear wing.
‘There were certain tracks where we were not as efficient as we wanted to be in terms of the downforce versus drag,’ explained Harman. ‘Monza was one in particular. We took the lessons from it. We created some new things. We designed some new things.
‘This year, this car’s rear wings will be matched more heavily towards each individual event, making sure that for certain types of downforce versus drag requirement, we’re more optimal and closer to where we want to be from an ultimate lap time.’
Putting everything together, Harman indicated that Alpine has taken a ‘very aggressive approach’ to the A524 design.
Aston Martin made huge strides in the 2023 season, but the team dropped down the standings. Alpine hopes the winter work it has done will enable it make an impressive leap like its rivals rather than reach a performance plateau, as it did when it produced the A523.
‘We’ll see where we are when we get to the Bahrain test,’ concluded Harman. ‘But we will relentlessly upgrade this car and we’ve got an awful lot of potential to extract that we’ve not anywhere achieved all of just yet.’
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