F1 News: Alpine To Bring Significant Upgrades To Belgian GP In Effort To Drastically Turn Season Around

Alpine is primed to debut a substantial upgrade for the A523's floor at the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix.

This comes after the French team suffered from back to back double DNF weekends at the British and Hungarian Grands Prix. The move is part of the team's strategy to catch up with McLaren, who've surged ahead in recent races. Despite the setbacks, Alpine's end-of-season goal remains a P4 finish in the championship.

At the British Grand Prix, Alpine introduced a new front wing, but both Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon were unable to finish the race. They encountered further misfortunes in Hungary when a crash at Turn 1 of Lap 1 led to both drivers' early exit. Meanwhile, McLaren celebrated a P2 and P4 finish at Silverstone overtaking Alpine in the constructors' standings. The Woking-based squad further extended the gap behind them to Alpine with a P2 and P5 finish in Budapest.

Sporting director of Alpine, Alan Permane, noted the importance of their new upgrade to Motorsport.com:

“The floor is independent of the front wing. It’s important because we need to keep putting downforce on the car and moving forward and going faster, basically.

“So it’s very important. It isn’t linked to the front wing, but it’s a very significant step for us.”

He also praised McLaren's impressive performance but stressed that Alpine is focused on their own development.

“McLaren have done an incredible job. Hats off to them, honestly. If you look from where they were in Bahrain, to where they’ve come to, it’s almost like this is where they should have been, and they were suffering before.

“It’s not normal to make such a huge step like that. But even so, they’ve done a great thing. We are of course looking at everyone, but mainly focusing on ourselves and our own model in the tunnel, and bringing the upgrades as fast as we can.

"That’s [P4] our plan. And we will just keep developing as hard as we can to try and achieve that.

“There’s definitely a large upgrade for Singapore, but I think there’ll certainly be smaller stuff for example in Monza as well."

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