{"id":18777,"date":"2024-02-29T08:25:40","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T13:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=18777"},"modified":"2024-02-29T09:04:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T14:04:27","slug":"f1-news-bahrain-practice-reveals-harsh-reality-of-alpine-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/02\/29\/f1-news-bahrain-practice-reveals-harsh-reality-of-alpine-situation\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News: Bahrain practice reveals harsh reality of Alpine situation"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Drawing conclusions from the first practice of 2024 is always dangerous, but there are still reasons to be concerned at Alpine.<\/h3>\n<p>The A524 is a machine that, since pre-season testing, has been downplayed by Enstone.<\/p>\n<p>Expectations from the French outfit have been minimal for several weeks, and especially since testing.<\/p>\n<p>Based on last week&#8217;s running, Alpine suffers from a variety of serious limitations.<\/p>\n<p>These include an overweight car and a poor engine. This is despite the team&#8217;s efforts to improve the Renault power unit&#8217;s efficiency.<\/p>\n<p>Alpine&#8217;s carbon-heavy livery is also a major talking point. Still, it hasn&#8217;t compensated for its excess kilos.<\/p>\n<p>Just these factors are costing the A524 an <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OffTrack_FR\/status\/1763175945450500523\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">estimated five-tenths per lap.<\/a> Even for the best engineers in Formula 1, overcoming this almost automatic deficit is no easy feat.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"sv\">FP1 Results \ud83c\udfc1 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/m2JDL50xnm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/m2JDL50xnm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 BWT Alpine F1 Team (@AlpineF1Team) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AlpineF1Team\/status\/1763180798096630151?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>There are other problems on the team&#8217;s list, such as the limited load and aerodynamic performance generated by the car.<\/p>\n<p>All of this was relatively well-established before Practice 1 in Sakhir. Statements from Ocon, Gasly and senior personnel in the team have all echoed a similar sense of resignation to the situation.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for Bruno Famin&#8217;s personnel, there are no reasons to be optimistic. Even an ultra-efficient development programme would struggle to overhaul the team&#8217;s current predicament.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at the timing sessions from the first official session of 2024, Alpine finds itself at the very back.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"yJBwyzQtQIRF1Tx2xg8yeQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2047938604\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'yJBwyzQtQIRF1Tx2xg8yeQ',sig:'FbGLllgEhpGys7G8ZLV2ZxW53Anw6Mip-Pv5gBlv6Wo=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2047938604',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Esteban Ocon was 17th with a 1:35.144, with teammate Pierre Gasly around three-tenths behind.<\/p>\n<p>As it stands, only the Haas duo were behind the all-French duo.<\/p>\n<p>What makes matters worse is that, unlike the rest of the field, Haas did not set a single low-fuel run.<\/p>\n<p>They remained focused on long runs, meaning Alpine were essentially last in FP1. Of course, there is still time to rectify the situation.<\/p>\n<p>However, it cannot be said there are many strong reasons to expect a resurgence from Enstone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drawing conclusions from the first practice of 2024 is always dangerous, but there are still reasons to be concerned at Alpine. The A524 is a machine that, since pre-season testing, has been downplayed by Enstone. Expectations from the French outfit have been minimal for several weeks, and especially since testing. Based on last week&#8217;s running, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":18698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,2243,1567,542,68,23],"class_list":["post-18777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-a524","tag-alpine","tag-bahrain-gp","tag-f1","tag-formula-1"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}