Alpine hoping FIA "all over" potential 2022 rival collaborations

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Alpine

Alpine hoping FIA "all over" potential 2022 rival collaborations

Marcin Budkowski wary of possible information exchange

Ian Parkes

Tuesday 24 August 2021 16:45

Alpine executive director Marcin Budkowski has expressed hope the FIA is correctly policing the potential for further copying ahead of the introduction of F1's new era in 2022.

Last year, in its former guise as Renault, the team exposed the illegal copying by Racing Point of the brake ducts of Mercedes that led to a points deduction and fine for the Silverstone-based team that has since become Aston Martin.

Budkowski has expressed a slight worry that behind the scenes there may still be an exchange of information between teams on occasion, in particular with regard to the all-new cars for next season when any collaboration would prove highly useful.

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Given Alpine's battle in the constructors' championship this season with AlphaTauri and Aston Martin, respectively linked to Red Bull and Mercedes, Budkowski was asked whether he had any concerns going forward.

"It's a difficult question," said Budkowksi, speaking in a recent media session that included GPFans Global.

"I don't know what's going on in other people's factories. I don't know what level of scrutiny the FIA is putting on us as an independent team.

"Obviously, we don't come under the scrutiny of sharing anything with our competitors because it would be against our own interest.

"Normally we're all competitors. The Formula 1 I think we'd all like to see is 10 teams, or 11 or 12 in the future, that just fight each other mercilessly and are just there for their own sporting success.

"From the moment that teams have a common interest in exchanging information, that's a problem because it shouldn't be the case. You shouldn't be helping your competitors.

"There's a concern there, but I can't say how much. I'm not going to accuse people because effectively I don't know and I hope there's nothing happening."

Pointing to the potential advantages to be gained for next year, Budkowski added: "Clearly, going into 2022, a massive change of regulations, big development slope, lots of performance being gained on these very, very green, fresh set of regulations, the benefits you can get from collaboration, whether it's legal or less are massive.

"If there's a year where these kinds of collaborations could pay off, it's this year for 2022. Clearly, if there's a year where we expect the FIA to be really all over it, it's this year."