"Can't believe the alpine got leaked this year again" - Fans react as French F1 team's supposed 2023 car is seen on track before launch

With their livery launch planned for February 16, the Alpine F1 team took to the Silverstone track to have a closed-door shakedown for their 2023 challenger.

However, it seems like the team may have accidentally leaked their car before the launch with pictures of the 2023 car. Usually, the F1 teams go in for a shakedown for their car after they have launched it to the fans.

While some fans took to Twitter to express their disappointment about the leak before the launch, one fan questioned if the picture of the car doing the rounds on social media was the new 2023 version or last year's. He wrote:

"Ok pixel peepers, there’s an Alpine on track at Silverstone today but is it the new car or the old one?"

Another fan mentioned that they could not believe that the new car got leaked ahead of its upcoming launch on Thursday, stating:

"Can't believe the alpine got leaked this year again."

Here are some more reactions to the leak:

"If we were seventh, there was a celebration" - Fernando Alonso takes a dig at Alpine

Fernando Alonso took a sly dig at his former F1 team Alpine for lacking ambition as compared to his new team, Aston Martin. Alonso, who raced for the French manufacturer in the last two seasons, left the team at the end of the 2022 season after two decently successful seasons.

As per Crash.net, Alonso said:

“Everyone [at Aston Martin] is hungry for success. Maybe they didn’t experience fighting for wins regularly or championships or podiums every weekend but they trust themselves, they have self-confidence and they know they can achieve that but they never did yet."

“This is very different compared to other teams that I joined on the last few occasions. Maybe they had success in the past and they were just in a comfortable position. They were just fourth and they were happy with fourth. They were fifth, they were happy with fifth. If we were seventh there was a celebration. Here there are no celebrations until we win and this is very appealing.”

The two-time champion also showered praise on his new boss Lawrence Stroll and called him 'very demanding', adding:

“I am very demanding with everything that I do. I expect a lot from the people that I work with. I give my 100 percent and I expect the same from the people I work with. Since the first day at Aston Martin, I felt exactly the same values from the people around me,"

It will be interesting to see if Alpine responds to Alonso's digs about their ambitions in F1.