Mercedes, Ferrari and Aston Martin were closely matched over the first three races of 2023, taking turns to lead the pursuit of Red Bull in qualifying and races, with the three teams clearly a step ahead of the rest.
Latterly Alpine has generally looked to be at the front of the chasing pack, although the Enstone team was hit hard by the collision that led to the retirements of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly in Australia.
Nevertheless, speaking to the F1 Nation podcast, Szafnauer said that the Melbourne race indicated that the team is making good progress.
“I’m pleased with some components,” said Szafnauer when asked to sum up the season.
“We’ve now analysed our relative competitiveness, and we’ve made gains on Ferrari and Mercedes so far.
“We’ve lost out a little bit to Red Bull and the team that has made the most gain that we’re racing, or hopefully we’ll be racing against, is Aston Martin. So we’ve done a decent job over the winter. It could have been better, but we still haven’t optimised.
“We had a decent race in Australia, running fifth until nearly the end… then a red flag, and we come together, and we lose a bunch of points. So the good news is the competitiveness was looking better at the last race, the bad news is we got zero points.
“To me the most important thing is the competitiveness. As long as we have a competitive car, the points will come.”
Szafnauer stressed that the team has to win the development race that is set to define the season.
“We’re not quite where we want to be,” he said. “So therefore we have to out-develop our competition. Our development curve has to be just a little bit steeper than the others, so that we can make up those three, four-tenths of a second that we’re behind.
Slotting into a new environment will still take Pierre Gasly some time
Photo by: Alpine
“And I know everyone else says that too. I’ve seen Mercedes say a similar thing. For them to catch Red Bull, they have to be on a steeper development curve.
“So that’s what we’re all trying to do. And somebody will get it done. I just hope it’s us. And we’re working hard at making sure that it is us.”
Szafnauer made it clear that Alpine believes that if it can close the gap to the group ahead it will in effect put itself in the battle to catch leaders Red Bull.
“To me, if you’re fighting for fourth this year, you’re fighting for second,” he said. “It’s that close. So we’ve got to get up there and be able to fight with…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Motorsport.com – Formula 1 – Stories…