“Last year, it looked like a toy” - Esteban Ocon makes big claim on Alpine ‘race machine’ A523

Esteban Ocon feels that the new Alpine A523 makes the old one look 'like a toy'. Talking to The Race. Ocon said that he's impressed with the new car.

He touched on the importance of the details he sees on the car now compared to last season. In 2022, Alpine finished fourth in the championship and as the leader of the midfield by beating McLaren. They aim to do much of the same this season too.

Talking about the car, The French driver sounded quite optimistic, as he was impressed by the details on the car. He said:

"When I come to the car, I look at it closely: I look at the details, how every part goes next to each other, how good everything looks, the details. Even from my position: how the carbon seat is finished, the pedal box. Last year, it looked like a toy, the car, in comparison to this year. This year it’s a proper race machine, and it’s a huge step. I think we are in much, much better shape than we were last year. Let’s see if it’s confirmed on-track.”

Talking about the competitors, the Alpine driver singled out how Mercedes and Aston Martin also look impressive at a first glance. He said:

“It looks a lot more detailed than last year when most cars were launched, obviously it was the first new-reg cars. But it looks quite impressive – the Aston Martin, the Merc, all these kind of cars, they look very fast. We will see, once we start running, where everyone sits.”

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Alpine aim to outdevelop competitors

Talking about the plans for the season, Esteban Ocon said that the team is much better prepared this time around compared to last season as they aim to out-develop their competitors during the season. He said:

“Last year has been great. Obviously, we’ve performed consistently, and we got in points very often. I think what we need to get better for 2023 is to start with a car that’s performing a little higher than it did last year. Because we struggled early on, we were not in the best shape in the winter test and the first couple of races."

He added:

“From what I’ve seen during this shakedown is that we are race-ready, basically. That’s a massive step up from last year. And obviously as Otmar said, outdeveloping the competitors is going to be the aim to close that gap from fourth to third."

Alpine will hope to retain fourth position in the championship this season. Moreover, picking up a few podiums on the way would make the season interesting.