Alpine boss provides hope after Fernando Alonso's troubles: "We should have a more reliable powertrain next year"

Alpine's team principal, Otmar Szafnauer, recently spoke about how their 2023 powertrains will be much more reliable than before.

As most F1 fanatics know, Alpine had a horrendous 2022 F1 season as they faced numerous reliability issues which caused them multiple DNFs. Hence, the team is more focused on improving their car's reliabilty rather than its performance.

As per RACER, Otmar Szafnauer spoke about how the team deserves to be in fourth position, but also mentioned the reliability woes throughout last season. He also emphasized that their car does not have performance issues. He said:

"I think fourth is probably where we deserve to be. We should have had a few more points than we do, we had some reliability issues so not really on performance, and I look forward to fixing those next year because they’re allowed to be fixed from a powertrain perspective. You can make those changes."

Otmar Szafnauer further explained how the team will be introducing a more reliable powertrain for the 2023 F1 season. However, he explained that the ancillary in the car has more reliability problems than the powertrain and how the team has to redesign it in order to fix the entire system. Szafnauer said:

"We should have a more reliable powertrain next year even though some of the issues we had weren’t really with the powertrain, they were with the ancillary bits. We have to redesign those and fix them. I think if we can do that with the powertrain being frozen – and I have every confidence that we will – then I think we’ll naturally score more points."

Fernando Alonso, a former driver at Alpine, suffered quite a lot with retirements from five races. He ended his stint with the team and moved to Aston Martin for the 2023 season. Esteban Ocon, on the other hand, also faced two retirements, though he was able to finish ahead of his teammate.

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Esteban Ocon eager for podium finishes with Alpine in the future

Esteban Ocon won his first F1 race back in 2021 in Hungary. While Fernando Alonso kept Lewis Hamilton from overtaking, the young Frenchman drove as fast as he could to keep the lead. The Frenchman recently spoke about how he wants to experience a podium finish once more with Alpine.

However, he understands that it is a long-term plan since they are still way behind. Speaking to RacingNews365, Esteban Ocon said:

"I want to taste it [a podium finish] soon, I tell you, but everybody's working hard on that. It’s hard to give a time on that. Obviously, there is the 100-race target, but I feel that we're on the right path after this year, and that's the important thing. I think from there on, we're only going to improve."

He mentioned the 100-race target that Alpine has set for themselves and how they are moving in the right direction. Esteban Ocon is positive that the team will improve in the 2023 F1 season.