The BWT Alpine Formula 1 team launched the Alpine A522 in a brief even in Paris. With the preseason test session having begun in Barcelona; the new liveries were presented on two separate 2022 spec show cars. BWT has recently become Alpine’s new title sponsor and as such; the team will be running its pink ‘flipped’ livery for the first two races of the season. The differences between the show car and the Alpine renders with its slotted bodywork are very easy to spot. Alpine joins Ferrari and Aston Martin with the use of cooling vents around the engine.

New Beginnings

Alpine has a lot of work ahead of it this season; with changes in the management structure and engine philosophy compounding the challenges of the new regulations. Otmar Szafnauer joins Alpine as Team Principal, having left Aston Martin in the off-season. With all these changes; Alpine CEO Laurent Ross is cautious in his expectations for the team. He has reportedly set a conservative fifth-place finish in the Constructor’s championship as the goal for the team.

He stated “It’s with great pleasure that we launch our A522 to the world today, marking the next chapter in Alpine’s Formula 1 journey. We are proud racers and have poured the essence of Alpine’s racing heritage and passion into this new generation of Formula 1car. We have a clear plan and vision in place at Alpine and we have some of the best people in the business to help drive us forward and realise our ambitions. Our team is stronger now and, we hope, future-proof. Our driver line-up is the perfect recipe to help deliver the results we want to achieve on track. In 2022, we want to show constant progress with comprehensive developments across all sites to ensure we are contenders for the title in the future. We are going in the right direction and we want to carry on our climb to the summit.”

More aggression

Despite this somewhat cautious approach, he has also instructed the Viry-Châtillon based engine performance staff to be less conservative with the engine. Renault/Alpine has been at the bottom of the engine power rankings (although not by much). Ross has said he would prefer to have an engine that needs to be turned down for reliability than to have a reliable underpowered engine. Alpine has repackaged their engine opting for a split turbo design pioneered by Mercedes and also adopted by Honda & Redbull. This has resulted in much sleeker bodywork in the A522, especially around the airbox/coke-bottle area when compared to the A521.