| Alpine A524 | |
| Category: | Formula One |
| Designer: | Matthew Harman Simon Virrill Benjamin Norton Steven Booth Dirk de Beer James Rodgers |
| Predecessor: | Alpine A523 |
| Turbo/Na: | Turbo |
| Front Suspension: | Double wishbone push-rod |
| Rear Suspension: | Double wishbone push-rod |
| Electric Motor: | Kinetic and thermal energy recovery systems |
| Fuel: | BP[1] |
| Lubricants: | Castrol |
| Engine Position: | Rear-mid mounted |
| Engine Name: | Mecachrome-built and assembled Renault E-Tech RE24 1.60NaN0 direct injection V6 turbocharged engine limited to 15,000 RPM in a mid-mounted, rear-wheel drive layout |
| Capacity: | 1.6L |
| Team: | BWT Alpine F1 Team |
| Debut: | 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix |
The Alpine A524 is a Formula One racing car designed and developed by the Alpine F1 Team competing in the 2024 Formula One World Championship.[2] It is the fourth Formula One car entered by Alpine since rebranding from Renault. The A524 is being driven by Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon and Jack Doohan, the latter of whom is expected to replace Ocon at the season-concluding after Ocon ended his final season with the team early.[3] Reserve driver duties were previously handled by Doohan, as he had driven in first practice for the and Grands Prix in the year. Initially considered to be the worst-running car of the field at the beginning of the year, the team's results have steadily improved throughout the season to return to the lower midfield. The car managed to score Alpine's first fastest lap at the United States Grand Prix, and the team's first double podium at the São Paulo Grand Prix, which was also the team's first podium of the season.
Alpine unveiled the car at a launch event at their factory at Enstone on 7 February 2024, alongside the Alpine A424 sports prototype racing car.[4] It sported a mostly bare carbon livery, with streaks of blue and pink across the car. Two liveries were released, a traditional blue one and a pink one in partnership with title sponsors BWT. It originally sported little colour, but from pre-season testing onwards, a blue arrow was added across the front nose cone. The pink livery was unchanged. The car made its first appearance at the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix.[5] The car's weaknesses were observed to be a lack of traction, a lack of downforce, and it being 11 kilograms heavier than the 798kg minimum. This extra weight came from an attempt to strengthen the monocoque, which had failed its lateral load test. A lighter chassis appeared at the Chinese Grand Prix.[6]
The Alpine A524's performance on track compared to previous cars was immediately deemed to be lacking[7] at the, locking out the last two places on the grid during qualifying and finishing seventeenth and eighteenth behind Valtteri Bottas, who had suffered a slow pit stop, and Logan Sargeant.[8] Alpine's woes continued into the with both drivers once again suffering a Q1 knockout with Ocon in seventeenth and Gasly eighteenth. While Gasly retired after the formation lap due to a gearbox problem, Ocon finished in thirteenth.[9] At the, Ocon made it to Q2 but was only able to qualify in fifteenth, and Gasly was knocked out of Q1 once again in seventeenth. Gasly finished in thirteenth and Ocon sixteenth - last on track after George Russell retired, with Gasly receiving a five-second time penalty for crossing the pit exit line.[10] The saw Ocon qualify fifteenth once again with Gasly in seventeenth, with both drivers finishing fifteenth and sixteenth respectively.[11] The first sprint weekend of the saw Gasly and Ocon qualify sixteenth and seventeenth respectively, with Ocon finishing thirteenth and Gasly fifteenth. Both Alpines made it into Q2 for qualifying for the main race, with Ocon, who qualified thirteenth, finishing eleventh and Gasly, who qualified fifteenth, finishing thirteenth.[12]
At the sprint qualifying for the, Gasly and Ocon qualified for sixteenth and thirteenth respectively. Ocon would finish fifteenth and Gasly would finish ninth. Both Alpines made it into Q2 for qualifying for the main race. Gasly, who qualified twelfth, would remain in position for the race. Ocon, who qualified thirteenth, would finish in tenth, giving Alpine's first point finish of the season.[13]
Other than the addition of an additional blue/pink arrow on the front nose cone after pre-season testing, and a rainbow gradient across the halo at the Austrian Grand Prix for Pride Month, Alpine's livery has remained mostly the same. Much like previous years since 2022, Alpine competes in a pink livery for title sponsors BWT, and instead of only being restricted to the first few races of the season, the pink livery was used for more races throughout the season. So far, the pink livery has been used in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Azerbaijan and São Paulo. Alpine raced an all-pink BWT livery for the final three races of the season.[14]
So far, two special liveries have been used by Alpine to promote their investors and sponsors. For the Belgian Grand Prix, Alpine raced with a Deadpool livery to promote the Deadpool & Wolverine film, which stars and was produced by investor Ryan Reynolds' production company[15] and for the United States Grand Prix, Alpine raced with an Indiana Jones livery to promote the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game, which involved Microsoft subsidiary Xbox.[16]
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* Season still in progress