Alpine has been revitalized by the incredible focus of Fernando Alonso who has propelled the rather uncompetitive car in places where it shouldn't belong. He even helped Esteban Ocon and Renault as a constructor win its first race by thwarting Lewis Hamilton for long enough in Hungary that he couldn't challenge for the win. Laurent Rossi, Alpine's new CEO has revealed that the road could be longer than what many believe.
"We have a long-term project, the objective is to reach a level of competitiveness that places us on the podium as many times as possible in 2024," Rossi told F1.com.
"From today in fifth, you can easily find a roadmap. It's going to be every year a bit better. It's a 100-race project, four years, four seasons. Every race we must make progress. It can be progress you see on the track or progress you don't see, all the little details," he added.
"The idea is to never stop and be able to see we're going in the right direction. Next year, it'll be a coin tossing year. All we want is to make sure we have a satisfactory level of performance when we start, which doesn't put us too far from the top, And then from there, we can carry on our climb to the summit," he explained pointing towards the major regulatory change coming in the sport.
Rossi resigned Alonso for the 2022 season and has made many changes to the structure of the team
Fernando Alonso came back to F1 in a bid to win his third-world title but had always stated that it will only happen with the new changes in rules. However, Rossi states while the pecking order of the grid will shuffle, but it still is a couple of years away from operational excellence as an organization.
"We are here to stay, we are here to improve every year. We are here with an ambition. Alpine is part of one of the biggest manufacturers of the world. The story is that Alpine will have a long-term commitment. We are planning to transform Alpine in the electric car sports arena. We're developing the product," said Luca De Meo, the CEO of Renault, Alpine's parent.
Luca De Meo was the man who fired Cyril Abiteboul the former Renault F1 boss in favour of Rossi and this year there have been some stark gains, for example, Ocon's race win which Renault as a constructor hadn't experienced in over a decade.
