Alpine slid back from fourth in 2022 to sixth last season, being stuck in no man’s land some distance away from rivals McLaren and Aston Martin.
The Enstone team found it tough to continue adding significant performance to last year’s A523, so Harman’s technical team has opted to complete redesign the car ahead of 2024.
As well as running into the ceiling of how far it could develop the 2023 car, Harman says the wholesale design changes should yield a car that has a much wider operation window than its peaky predecessor.
“We maxed out the potential on the A523 and so the A524 is completely new from front to back,” Harman said about Esteban Ocon’s and Pierre Gasly’s new car.
Alpine A524
Photo by: Alpine
“We rigorously analyzed the key aerodynamic concepts that we wanted to move towards on this car to explore more aerodynamic freedom and better unlock these concepts to their full potential.
“We found with the A523 that it was operating within a very narrow window. This was a weakness as it meant we were limited on what we could exploit with the car and there were very specific characteristics on where it thrived and where it did not.
“Therefore, for the A524, we aim to broaden this window as much as we can to give ourselves a better opportunity of maximizing its potential.”
Watch: Alpine launches the A524
The A524 features all-new chassis and further changes include a new rear suspension set-up, a revised brake system to improve cooling, a new nose and front wing as well as what Harman has called “aggressive” floor development.
Alpine A524
Photo by: Alpine
The team hopes that the new platform will allow it to maintain a much steeper development curve through 2024 and 2025, the final year of the current regulations cycle.
“By applying these changes, we are giving ourselves much wider scope to add performance across the next two seasons even if there has been some compromise on reaching certain targets,” he explained.
“We have pushed some elements to the limit and, in some cases, beyond that. That is all in line with our approach and exactly what we have set out to achieve in progressing this project to the best possible level.”
He added: “This project began as early as the end of the 2022 season. We started doing some experiments with the car at races across 2023. This enabled us to highlight the areas in which we aim to improve the aerodynamics and vehicle dynamics of the car.”
