Alpine hopeful of fighting for 2nd position in championship alongside rivals Mercedes, Ferrari, and Aston Martin

Alpine F1 team principal Otmar Szafnauer has said that they can get into the fight for P2 and join rivals Aston Martin, Ferrari, and Mercedes with a couple of tenth more seconds in the next couple of races.

The France-based outfit showcased terrific speed, courtesy of Pierre Gasly, in Melbourne while fighting for the final podium position. However, a late clash between their drivers took away a golden opportunity to come out of the race with a good haul of points.

Speaking to Motorsport.es, Szafnauer said ahead of the next race in Baku:

"We have analysed our competitiveness and have made gains against Ferrari and Mercedes so far. We have lost a bit to Red Bull, and, hopefully, soon we will be able to compete against Aston Martin. So, I think, we've done a decent job over the winter, it could have been better. But we haven't optimised our package yet."

"We are aware that our development curve has to be a bit steeper than the others so that we can make up for those three, four-tenths of a second that we lose. We are working hard to make sure that we take a big step forward."

The Alpine team boss added:

"For me, if you're fighting for fourth this year, you're also fighting for second. It's all that close, we have to be able to fight with Mercedes, Aston, and Ferrari. I think the group of three teams is fighting for second place, and if we can get what I said, three-tenths or four-tenths, then we'll be in that fight as well. That's our goal; there have only been three races, and there are still 20 to go,"

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“We have a decent-size upgrade coming for Baku and a bit more a week later in Miami" - Alpine team principal

Otmar Szafnauer also said that they are bringing in some upgrades in Baku and Miami to close the gap to the front.

As per Motorsportweek, he said:

“We think we can fight with them. Yeah, we too have a decent-size upgrade coming for Baku and then a little bit more only a week later in Miami, so we continue to push the upgrades out. I mean, the important thing is that they all work when we put them on the car, and we have good correlation with our simulation tools."

It will be fascinating to see if Alpine are indeed closer to their rivals and fight for the final spot on the podium.