F1 teams warned against 'copy-paste' tactics with new regulations

Alpine

F1 teams warned against 'copy-paste' tactics with new regulations

Teams have so far produced different design ideas

Topher Smith

Thursday 3 March 2022 15:18

Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi is confident there will be no "copy-paste" tactics when it comes to this year's car designs.

The idea of such a practice came to the fore in 2020 when Racing Point, now Aston Martin, turned up to pre-season testing with what was effectively a copy of the 2019 title-winning Mercedes.

With the new regulations firmly in place for this year, Rossi believes the different interpretations of the regulations seen already will lead to teams outright pursuing their own concepts.

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“Obviously, there are a lot of interpretations of the rules and we can see differences already," said Rossi.

"I guess there is going to be a lot of looking aside and convergence, but for now, we also need to push our concept as far as we can as well. We have to believe in our concept.

“Unless you are really at the back of the grid, it’s the direction that the engineers take and you cannot just copy-paste everything that you see elsewhere. Definitely, there are differences.”

Alpine appointment of Szafnauer a late move

Alpine will be overseen this season by former Racing Point and Aston Martin team principal Otmar Szafnauer.

Szafnauer was heavily linked with Alpine towards the end of last year before leaving Aston Martin in early January.

Rossi, however, insists the appointment of Szafnauer was "quite late actually".

Rossi added: "He was obviously on my shortlist of people that could be of interest."

Sitting alongside Toto Wolff, Christian Horner, Andreas Seidl and Franz Tost, Rossi remarked; "Pretty much everyone on this bench was on my shortlist but you can’t have anybody.

“I discussed with a lot of people throughout the year and when Otmar became free officially, I started to intensify my conversation with him and we signed very, very late.”