“Damn that Alpine merch is fire though”: Fans react to French F1 team’s colorful merchandise for the Mexican Grand Prix

F1 fans were impressed by the colorful merchandise released by the Alpine F1 team ahead of the 2023 F1 Mexican GP, which is scheduled to be held on Sunday, October 29.

Heading into the final leg of the season, most F1 teams tend to let their hair loose and introduce new liveries and merchandise to appease their fans from across the pond. The French team looked to have embraced the colorful culture as their overalls will represent the colors of Mexico.

F1 fans took to social media to give their reactions, with one fan even claiming that new merch by Alpine was 'fire', commenting:

"Damn that Alpine merch is fire though."

Here are some more reactions:

Esteban Ocon on how Luca de Meo's tough love approach has changed Alpine

Esteban Ocon was present at the Endstone factory when Renault boss Luca de Meo visited ahead of the Qatar GP.

As per Autosport, De Meo dished out some harsh truths to the team regarding their performance deficit to their rivals, especially on the engine side, which is estimated to be 30bhp down to their competitors.

However, Ocon claimed that de Meo's 'tough love' approach was meant to motivate the team working at the base. He said:

"I was having performance meetings on that day. Obviously, yes, I attended that speech of Luca. Luca came in to reaffirm and motivate everyone inside the factory. It was good that he visited us. He replied to a lot of questions as well from everyone.

"Of course, there's things we that need to improve. We are on that way to be doing that and I'm sure that we are going to be able to achieve it in the future."

When asked why the Renault boss waited for so long to address the issues and speak with the team, Ocon replied:

"I think it's always a good thing to see a boss coming into the factory, stepping in the doors and just motivating everyone. It's a great thing showing that the plan with Formula 1 is completely within Alpine. That really shows how much he cares about the project. It's always the right time. There's no bad or good times, it's always the right time."

The team underwent major personnel changes just before the summer break as boss Otmar Szafnauer and Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi were removed from their respective positions with technical director Pat Fry also leaving the team for Williams F1.