F1 News: Alpine CEO reveals the team was "in shambles" during pre-season
Laurent Rossi, Alpine's CEO, has admitted that nobody expected the French squad to finish above P8 in the standings during pre-season.
The Alpine boss has expressed his satisfaction with the team's performance in 2022, explaining that the situation looked bleak before the first round.
Whilst analysing performance during pre-season testing is very difficult, Alpine did not appear especially competitive in the Bahrain or Barcelona tests.
Reliability was an issue - although not catastrophic - and the A522 did not appear to have an especially encouraging level of performance.
Speaking to the media in Abu Dhabi, Laurent Rossi discussed the difficulties Alpine faced and how they were overcome:
"It's a capacity of Enstone and Viry to deliver upgrades throughout the season and stay competitive.
"We started the season in bad shape. I mean, we arrived in Barcelona [pre-season] in shambles, I could say.
"And then the idea was to develop as late as we can because it was a brand new car. And from there, try to make our way up the grid.
"Nobody was seeing us anywhere above eight position, I remember back then... so I'm quite pleased that we managed to catch up."
Alpine demonstrated a very high level of development through 2022, making substantial progress across the campaign.
The French squad can take satisfaction in this strength, but plenty of work lies ahead if they are to fight with Formula 1's top three teams.