"There's reason to be optimistic" - Alpine's podium finish at Monaco bodes well for the rest of the season, believes Mark Hughes

F1 pundit Mark Hughes believes that the podium for the Alpine F1 team at the 2023 Monaco GP may be the start of a good run for them.

The French outfit celebrated its first podium on Sunday, courtesy of Esteban Ocon, since the 2021 Qatar GP when Fernando Alonso came home in P3. The French driver was able to fend off the challenge from Mercedes and Ferrari in different phases of the race to secure the third place on the podium.

While appearing on The Race podcast, Hughes said:

"They came here with quite a good-looking upgrade on the side pods and new rear suspension, so there's reason to be optimistic that this is a genuine improvement in pace. The Alpine's been a bit inconsistent but even before its upgrade, there'd been some little glimpses of form.

"It's sort of snapping at the heels of Mercedes-Ferrari, the tail end of that group there from time-to-time and maybe it can get amongst it, that'd be great to see if could do not. We'll get a proper read on that in Barcelona, a more demanding track."

"We got some points that we desperately needed" - Alpine CEO

After his previously controversial remarks against the team, Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi has now stated that he is happy with the performance in Monaco and that the points were much needed for the team.

Speaking to Motorsport.com, he said:

"Yeah, it's good, it's important, we got some points that we desperately needed. Because we didn't deliver the level of performance that we should have in the first few races, which was the purpose of my message. So we kind of caught up, a big haul of points, which helps us strengthen at least the fifth position in a good fashion, which is nice.

"Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I doubt we're P3, on the face of it. We're probably going to get back to the natural order next week in Barcelona, I would assume something like anywhere between six and 10, I guess.

"And then we'll continue doing what I was expecting the team to do, which is deliver on operational excellence and show a different mindset in terms of analyzing errors, and mistakes, addressing them, and delivering something solid like that, which is very good."

It is nice to see that the Alpine CEO is satisfied with the team's performance in Monaco and hopefully, they can build on this momentum in the coming races.