How did Mercedes inspire Alpine's late-season resurgence in 2022? French team's engine chief explains

Alpine's switch to the Mercedes split turbo design has been attributed as the reason behind the upturn in performances of the French team this season. At the start of the regulations in 2014, Mercedes were the only team on the entire grid who opted for a split turbo design.

Since then, Honda has moved to that design as well, as it offers great aerodynamic advantages.

As per engine chief Bruno Famin, Alpine's adoption of the split turbo design helped with the team's resurgence this season. Talking to Racingnews365, he said:

"We had a totally brand new power unit in 2022 with major changes in the packaging. The most important change in terms of the packaging was the split turbo which improved the aerodynamic performance of the car, that is the evidence of the way we are now working with Enstone (where the chassis is built). We have not only been working on the PU itself, we have been working on the performance of the car."

According to the Alpine engine chief, after 8 years in the turbo-hybrid era, there are no meaningful differences in the performance of the best and worst power units on the grid. He said:

"Of course the performance of the PU is very important, but if we can have a gain on the aero side, on the chassis side, [or by] making some compromises on the PU side, we will do it and have worked a lot on it. In terms of integration, weight and cooling, it is not just a change in the technical philosophy, but a change in the way of working globally with Enstone. It has been a positive season in terms of performance and we really closed the gap [to the other manufacturers], there are no more significant differences between the best and worst PUs on the grid."

Alpine engine chief explains the cause of the power unit's reliability concerns this season

Alpine faced reliability issues in the second half of the season. Fernando Alonso was quite vocal about these concerns even while he was leaving the team at the end of the season.

The Alpine engine chief explained that one of the reasons why the team went for such a trade-off was because the team wanted to prioritize performance before the engine freeze came into effect. He said:

"We took quite a lot of risk in trying to develop the engine as late as possible and taking a risk in not doing the full validation process. We could have done it normally, but we really wanted to push to the very last moment, sometimes a bit too late because we had some issues, but we really wanted to push the maximum on the development."

He added:

"Our strategy was clear and to be back in the game in terms of the PU, and it has been achieved. With [engine development being] frozen for four years, the strategy was to do something with the performance and have the possibility to solve the reliability issues [later]."

While Alpine's power unit reliability remains a valid concern, they feel that the trade-off in terms of performance is worth it.