Alpine's drivers are tempering expectations for a significant performance boost this weekend at Suzuka, despite the team's unveiling of the season's first upgrades in Japan. After a 2023 season marred by internal upheavals and emerging with this year's slowest car, Renault's flagship team has introduced its initial enhancements to the woeful 2024 model.
"These are small developments," Esteban Ocon cautioned Canal Plus, emphasizing that while these are the first new components of the year, "they're not major. We shouldn't expect a change in hierarchy really. But we will be interested to see where exactly the car stands in relation to the others with these new parts and how it behaves."
One of the car's fundamental issues, aside from its lackluster engine, is its excess weight—reportedly up to 10 kilograms over the minimum. "We've also taken a little bit of weight off the car," Ocon noted, admitting, "which is a good thing - it's free performance. So we'll see where it takes us, but in any case, it won't be a revolution."
Pierre Gasly shared a similar message regarding the updates, clarifying that the upgrades were part of a pre-season plan and not a knee-jerk response to their disappointing start to 2024. "It's nice to have this first upgrade on the car," he stated. "But it's sort of following the development plan that we already had in place. We don't expect it to be major."
Gasly also tempered expectations about the upgrades dramatically altering Alpine's qualifying fortunes in Japan. "I don't want to give any specific targets," he mentioned, acknowledging, "We know it should be a small step of performance on the car, which we obviously need from where we are today. We need more but definitely it's positive to see that these first upgrades are on the car and more should follow in the next few months."
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