The French manufacturer has built an all-new power unit for this season, which most significantly sees it finally adopt the split turbine and compressor concept pioneered by Mercedes.
But with it clear that it needs to lift its power figures if it is going to fight at the front of the grid over the next few years, Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi says he has urged his engine staff not to play things safe and focus only on reliability.
Instead, he has told them to push on in seeking performance gains – as he feels that it will be easier to cure a fast but fragile power unit under F1’s new engine freeze rules rather than having to recover any lap time deficit.
Speaking to selected media including Autosport about engine development choices, Rossi said: “It’s either reliability or performance, as you usually have a hard time having both. So it’s just where do you push the envelope?
“During the year [in development] we experienced a couple of moments where the reliability was not…
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