Sanchez identifies Alpine’s targets and objectives for second half of 2024

Alpine’s Executive Technical Director David Sanchez has set out the key objectives that the team will be focused on during the second half of 2024, with the squad having endured mixed fortunes across the first 14 races of the season.

The year so far has been an eventful one for Alpine both on and off the track; as well as facing several changes in their leadership and technical structures, the Enstone operation have also experienced a lack of consistency in their results.

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While there have been highs – such as scoring double points at Rounds 9 and 10 in Canada and Spain respectively – there have also been lows, which included qualifying at the back of the field for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Now, with the upcoming Dutch Grand Prix set to kick off the final 10 races of the campaign, Sanchez says that Alpine will be aiming to build a more consistent level of performance in order to boost their points tally, which currently stands at 11 points in P8 of the constructors’ standings.

“Looking at how we finished the first half of the season, now naturally for the second half, our objective will be to try and settle on the high side of our performance level, which is trying to consistently enter Q3 in qualifying,” Sanchez explained in an Alpine mid-season review.

“It is tough because the top teams are making Q3 very busy, but we’ve seen now – if we can extract all the potential from the car and bring further improvements – we can aspire to being on the edge of the top 10 and staying there.

“This is one of the key objectives – being consistent and extracting consistently the maximum performance from the car. If we’re able to do this, then we should be bringing more points for the championship, and at the end of the year we’ll see exactly how far we can get to.”

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Alongside this, Sanchez is keen for the squad to continue to build on their mindset, which he has identified as being “different” to the attitude that they may have taken in the past.

“Another objective for the team is to try and keep building the foundation of the sort of mindset of racing spirit we’d like to build for the future,” the Frenchman said.

“It is different from where we’ve been in the last few months or few years, but it’s one transformation which is ongoing, and it’s already been fruitful and we definitely keep building on this one.”

Sanchez’s appointment at Alpine was announced back in May, with the move marking a return to Enstone nearly 20 years after he started his F1 career with the team – then in their guise as Renault – as a junior aerodynamicist.

This was later followed by a 10-year stint at Ferrari as head of their aerodynamics department and latterly as Head of Vehicle Concept. He then joined McLaren over the winter of 2023, before departing the role after just a few months.

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Reflecting on how he has settled in at Alpine, Sanchez commented: “I joined the team at the start of May after what was a difficult start of the season.

“I have to say, there has been a great reaction from the team, because a lot of changes happened in very little time. We reviewed the development plan [and] tried to establish a road ahead to bring development to the car in a fairly aggressive manner.

“We’ve seen some [developments in] Belgium, which was the first pass. We have many more coming for later in the season, and so far I have to say the team have been great, so I’m settling in pretty well, and we’ll try and build on this for the future and keep bringing more and more performance.”