Alpine boss Famin reveals F1 engine concern

After discussing engine equalisation in July last year with the F1 Commission, the team failed to get support from the other teams to make improvements to close the power deficit.

The FIA analysed the performance levels of Alpine's engine and found a "notable performance gap" by approximately 20-33bhp compared to Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda.

Speaking at the launch of the A524, Famin believes there is still opportunities for the team to improve and reduce the gap despite the restrictions on what can and cannot be improved with power units.

"We were lacking on the recovery side, and we are still lacking. Because with the regulation the way it is, we are trying to improve that because we are able to homologate new software per-year now," he told media, including RacingNews365.

"This is something we have worked on to try and reduce the gap a bit, but there will be no major differences with the previous year because the power unit is frozen. We can we can play a bit on the MGU-H but that's all."

Famin: We need to do a competitive car as a whole

When asked by RacingNews365 if the power deficit can be offset through weight saving or other means, Famin believes more focus should be put into improving the overall package.

"You cannot offset it because if you can save weight, you will work on the weight distribution a bit more," he explained.

"But if you have 'x' kilowatts less than the other, you will always do better with 'x' kilowatts more. It is what it is but at the end of the story, there is no need to focus on that.

"What we need to do is a competitive car as a whole, chassis and road tyre management, power unit, energy recovery and so on. We need to improve the global integration on the car.