Alpine F1 team positive over 'completely different' 2022 power unit

Alpine F1 team sporting director Alan Permane is optimistic over the gains Renault have made with their new power unit for the 2022 Formula 1 season.

Like most teams, Alpine did not run their engine at full capacity during pre-season testing at Barcelona. There’s also the fact that they are the only team to use Renault engines this season.

This makes getting more data difficult, and they weren’t helped by issues cutting their track time short. Despite that, there is hope they have made a significant step forward this season.

“We haven’t actually had to talk about the new power unit at all, and that in itself is positive,” Permane told reporters, quoted in the Dutch edition of Motorsport.

“This engine is completely different from all the things we got from Viry before. This engine is much more complex and also looks tighter.

“But anyway, we put the new power unit in the car and went out with it immediately and without any problems. That’s great, of course.

Also read: Charles Leclerc describes how porpoising car felt during pre-season testing

“From the drivers we only heard some of the usual comments about driveability and a bit of turbo lag. But after some adjustments to the mappings, that too was resolved.

“I have to add that we haven’t driven a single lap at full power yet. We haven’t used the engine settings for qualifying and the race yet, although we have come pretty close to them.”

Given the team finished fifth in the constructor’s championship last season with a power unit that wasn’t developed, the understanding is they need the new engine to work well if they are to climb up the standings.

Can Alpine F1 team make the step up?

In 2021, Alpine had a car that was quite the mystery. It worked very well on some circuits but just seemed well off the pace in others.

For every good result – see Esteban Ocon’s win at Hungary or Fernando Alonso’s podium at Qatar – there were races where they looked comfortably off the pace.

However, the team has done a lot of internal restructuring this year. They let go of former executive director Marcin Budkowski, as well as non-executive president Alain Prost.

In their place has come in Otmar Szafnauer, who exited Aston Martin at the end of the 2021 season. Szafnauer is the team principal both in title and responsibility, unlike Budkowski.

Still, it is too soon to tell if the Renault engine will make a big difference to Alpine’s hopes this season.