“We know we can fight them,” Alpine ready to challenge Mercedes with Baku upgrades

Otmar Szafnauer said he expects Alpine to fight against Mercedes in the upcoming Grands Prix with their new upgrades.

“We know we can fight them,” Alpine ready to challenge Mercedes with Baku upgrades

2JDC6K6 06/19/2022, Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, Montreal, FORMULA 1 AWS GRAND PRIX DU CANADA 2022 , in the picture George Russell (GBR), Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, Esteban Ocon (FRA), Alpine F1 Team

The start to 2023 did not pan out in the way the executives at Alpine would have wanted, but that is not dimming the hopes of their Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer, who believes they can easily take up the fight against Mercedes in the upcoming Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Speaking at his most recent interview, Szafnauer talked about the updates that his team is bringing to Baku, and how, if all goes well, he expects the French duo of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly to take on Lewis Hamilton and George Russell with their newly upgraded cars.

Last year, Alpine ended their campaign on a high with a P4 finish, thanks to Fernando Alonso’s amazing run. But now, Alonso is performing wonders at Aston Martin, and the Alpine pair of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly has not been able to impress their fans as much as the French squad would have wanted. But this has had no effect on Otmar Szafnauer, who has full faith in the team. The Romanian-American engineer claimed that the updates that Alpine have gotten up their sleeves will bring them to a level playing field with Mercedes.

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Mercedes have already attained one podium finish thanks to Lewis Hamilton at the Australian GP while Alpine have gotten a total of 8 points from their two drivers in the three Grands Prix that have happened till now. But Otmar Szafnauer said, “We think we can fight with them [Mercedes]. We too have a decent-size upgrade coming for Baku and then a little bit more only a week later in Miami, so we continue to push the upgrades out.”

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Related: Aston Martin urges F1 to ‘keep its DNA’ amidst radical Baku race weekend changes

Otmar Szafnauer believes replicating last year’s success can push Alpine against Mercedes

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Otmar Szafnauer

Last year, Alpine came out as the wonder team by surpassing McLaren and gaining the P4 position in the Constructors’ Championship in the end. According to their Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer, they have a lot to learn from their success from last year in order to catch up to Mercedes in 2023. Otmar said, “Last year our development rate was pretty good and if we can keep up the same this year, I think we should get closer over the year.”

The next time Alpine will be seen taking up a chance to get closer to Mercedes as it seems to be their plan, it will be the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku. Now, it remains to be seen if all plays out according to Otmar Szafnauer’s goal of taking over Mercedes, or if Alpine have to settle for yet another mediocre race with a few points to their name.

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