“Real gains” for Alpine after re-designing F1 power unit for 2022

Alpine was the penultimate team to unveil its all-new challenger - the A522 - on Monday evening in Paris.

Like some other teams such as Red Bull, Alpine decided to reveal a show car with its revised livery as the actual car is in Barcelona ahead of pre-season testing which gets underway on Wednesday.

Like Mercedes, Alpine has overhauled its power unit ahead of the engine freeze.

Speaking at the launch of the A522, Harman said the changes to the power unit are benefitting the team’s aerodynamic performance.

“We did a full review of this area of the car and we decided to change the architecture of that power unit extensively in all areas, including the internal combustion engine, the ERS system, the turbo and its positioning in the car,” he said.

“That has given us some real gains in terms of our ability to express ourselves aerodynamically and achieve the ultimate lap time of the car.”

Harman explained how the increased collaboration between the team’s two bases in Enstone (where the chassis is produced) and Viry-Châtillon (where the engine is developed) is helping the team.

“In terms of the Viry and Enstone integration we are a works team and we need to make 100% use of that benefit and we have done,” he added.

“So from the very start of our programme we worked closely together to actually start off with the people, start off how we integrate the people first, how we integrate the functions and from that comes very good engineering conversations and from that comes excellent engineering solutions.

“It’s been primarily focused on the organisations and making sure that although we are separate in terms of geography, in terms of our engineering discussions we are together and we are together on every decision. I think that’s an important part of being a works team in modern Formula 1.”