Alpine boss responds to Alonso: ‘If you look back, he was happy to finish P4'

Alpine were the final team to launch their F1 2023 challenger - the A523 - in London.

Esteban Ocon remains with the team for a fourth consecutive season, while Pierre Gasly has made the switch from AlphaTauri in place of Alonso.

Earlier this week ahead of Aston Martin’s launch, Alonso had a dig at two of his former employer’s - Alpine and McLaren - for being too happy for finishing fourth, fifth or even seventh in the F1 constructors’ championship.

Szafnauer was asked about Alonso’s comments and stated that the Spaniard “never raised it” during his two-year spell with the team.

“I think when we did finish fourth, if you look back, he was as happy as everybody else who was part of the team,” he told media including Crash.net at Alpine’s 2023 car launch on Thursday.

“When the year before you’re fifth and your ambition is to move up to fourth, it’s not easy to do. We had to beat McLaren. I’ve been to Woking and you walk by and they have a massive trophy cabinet, so they’re not easy to beat.

“So I think you have to celebrate those successes when you say, look, I want to be top four, I want to be fourth not fifth. I don’t think it’s shameful to say ‘we’ve done it and let’s celebrate’.

“For us, next year, if we can get much closer to third than we were this year, I’ll celebrate that too. If we’re closer and the gap isn’t that big, that means we’re making progress to where we want to go.”

With Alpine losing Alonso to Aston Martin, and more controversially, Oscar Piastri to McLaren, it could lead to increased tension in the midfield.

Szafnauer insists Alpine are not focusing on just beating “one or two teams” in 2023.

“No, I want to beat them all,” he added. “What I want to do is focus on the things that we can control,” 

“What we control is the development of our car, both powertrain as well as aerodynamic development.

“Let’s do the best job we can and see what happens. But I don’t think we focus on beating one or two teams. We’ve got to try to beat all of them.”