Esteban Ocon thinks Alpine’s 2023 car makes it predecessor look ‘like a toy’

Esteban Ocon thinks that the Alpine A522 'looked like a toy' compared to the newly-unveiled Alpine A523, and thinks the new car's a 'good evolution'.

Esteban Ocon thinks Alpine’s 2023 car makes it predecessor look ‘like a toy’

Esteban Ocon

2022 was definitely a step forward for Alpine. By and large, they had the measure of McLaren. The British finished third in 2020 and spent the vast majority of 2021 fighting for P3 as well. Alpine, on the other hand, finished in P5 every season since 2019. Definitely not where they wanted to be. In 2022, they were ‘best of the rest’ but there’s still a long way to go for them to meet their ambitions. Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon have a lot riding on their shoulders.

The fact that Alpine are certain that they’ve beaten the reliability issues that gave Fernando Alonso nightmares in 2022 is one boost for their ambitions. The Spaniard retired 6, and Ocon retired 2 times in 2022: All (8) except one were from mechanical failures. That definitely cannot happen again. They’ve also worked on the chassis and aerodynamic aspects of the car: The A523 is under the minimum weight limit.

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Ocon is clearly impressed with the team’s work and his car for the season. As per Motorsport.com, he said: “It’s a good evolution compared to last year. I’m a very mechanical guy, I like to get close to the bodywork, and close to the suspension side of things, and have a look deeply into how parts are made. And if I have to be honest, the 2022 car kind of looked like a toy, in comparison to what we have now.”

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Esteban Ocon: Not realistic to expect 2023 Alpine A523 to win races

Esteban Ocon
Esteban Ocon

Alpine have a 100-race plan; broadly, as CEO Laurent Rossi had said in 2021, they want to be on the podium as many times as possible in 2024. Before that, they aren’t expecting to be incredibly competitive. Considering the large gap between them and the top three teams last season (Mercedes in P3 finished 342 points ahead), you wouldn’t expect them to get themselves into the championship fight in 2023. Or perhaps even consistently compete for podiums and race wins.

Esteban Ocon is also keeping his expectations realistic, but also thinks it’s better to ‘speak after Bahrain’. He said: “Realistically, I don’t think that’s where we set ourselves. Obviously, if we put the car in Bahrain, and it’s super performing, we can speak after Bahrain, yes. At the moment, I don’t think that is realistic. But we’ll see. There could be surprises in F1. We’ve seen it in the past, we were not expecting the Brawn to be a winning car in 2009.”

So, the target for Alpine in 2023 is to finish fourth, holding off all the other midfield challengers. But at the same time, they obviously want to be much closer to third place than they were in 2022.

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