After a disappointing start to its 2024 season, Alpine has continued to evolve its engineering structure after installing David Sanchez as executive technical director earlier this year.
Sanchez, who had left McLaren only three months after starting at the British squad in January, had been picked up by Alpine to lead a new three-pronged technical structure set out by team principal Bruno Famin.
This followed the resignations of Matt Harman and Dirk de Beer as the A524 produced for this season had started off uncompetitive and overweight. Things had since improved through the reorganisation to a triad of technical directors, where Joe Burnell stepped up to be the engineering lead, David Wheater leading aerodynamics, and Ciaron Pilbeam headed up performance.
With Sanchez having become available, the three technical directors now report to him, and the Frenchman feeds into Famin.
Although bringing a new technical leader in weeks after a reorganisation might suggest the arrival of more vast changes, Sanchez has stated that he is largely happy with the team he encountered upon joining Alpine.
“They are very good. Everything needed to make a competitive car is there. So I was very pleased when I joined,” he revealed at Silverstone, conducting his first car presentation session for Alpine.
“Coming from outside, there was obviously a few things I tended to have my own opinion. There was a plan in place, we reviewed the plan, we adjusted a few things. For sure, the car needs a big push on upgrades. We are working on it and it’s going pretty well for now.
“This structure is becoming more and more the norm. There are big teams, so you need a lot of structure and for sure at the moment it seems to be working. We saw last year that McLaren was able to make big steps in-season.”
David Sanchez, Alpine Executive Technical Director
Photo by: Alpine
Adding to that, Sanchez says that the team is starting to understand its A524 more, noting the concerted effort to drop weight as a key factor. It was suggested that the car was bordering on 10kg overweight, but mass had been taken out over the opening races to ensure it became more competitive.
Alpine scored its first point of the season in Miami, and then added further scores in the races between and including Monaco and Austria, two of them double points finishes. The team hasn’t managed to finish any higher than ninth, but its recent performance has generally trended towards…
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