Laurent Rossi: “Several possible choices”
MotorsInside met with Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi. During the 24 Hours of Le Mans on August 21 and 22, he discussed Endurance and Formula 1. One thing is certain: the future of the Dieppe brand in motorsport will be written in large letters!
There are high expectations for Alpine’s future in Endurance racing. How do you manage the public’s excitement about your future and the fact that you have to wait before making any announcements?
We explore all possibilities, otherwise we would stay at home! There are several possible choices: LMH; LMDh; go away! As an indication, we want to stay.
All I can say is that we are currently working on it. We are looking at our business plan, which needs to be positive in order to consider anything! But we will have to wait a little while longer to know the ins and outs of what comes next.
With the arrival of many manufacturers in Hypercar, the competition will be particularly tough. Maybe stay in LMP2 next year before coming back in 2023?
We are not afraid of competition! We actually want to play with the best in the main category, and that is why we started!
What did the brand want to prove by taking this big leap into the top category facing the giants?
The things we constantly want to prove to ourselves are that we have the qualities to compete at the highest level, whether in Endurance or in F1.
In WEC, we certainly do not have the means of Toyota, just as in Formula 1 we do not have the best car.
Racing is not only about equipment, but also about people: how strategies are developed, how they are implemented, and what processes are involved.
What we prove in endurance is that Philippe Sinault’s team manages pressure very well, as in Le Mans, we are aiming for the podium. And that’s a great thing! This means that we have the right foundation, a good soil, to improve and reassess our ambitions upwards.
On the Formula 1 side: shortly before the Hungarian Grand Prix, the Alpine team had announced the shift of resources towards the 2022 revolution. And shortly after, Esteban Ocon clinched victory! How to manage this when the troops had to be galvanized?
It must be said that this victory came much earlier than on our schedule. Since the beginning of the year, we have restructured the teams a lot: this concerns the management of our two drivers as well as our way of preparing the car’s performances, qualifications, etc.
We ensure good communication between the Viry-Châtillon and Enstone poles to continuously improve the car’s performance. The victory in Budapest has shown that we know how to build our races well and that we already have the qualities to win.
But there is nothing paradoxical: we have shifted our resources to 2022 as we have reached the end of the development of this car, which we have been evolving for almost 3 years. It is more interesting to switch to next year, especially since we now have a light heart about the quality of our work.
The future of Alpine is assured in Formula 1. For 2022, is it too early to display ambitions, or do you know roughly where you stand?
It’s still early, because everyone around us is also starting from a blank sheet. We don’t ignore the past, because some teams have already had to invest much more than us in this new technical regulation and will have a slight head start.
The advantage is that everyone starts from scratch: we will arrive next year with a new design. There is no saying that Haas’s or Williams’s, or even ours, will not be the best! Some are presumed to have an advantage, but we have well-established skills in our two factories.
The first race of next year will not reveal much. Every car will make great progress quickly and it will be a firework display! We should see convergences in design and performance. We have the recipes to do well, and it will be interesting!
In its goal to be carbon neutral by 2030, Formula 1 will switch to engines running on 100% renewable fuels by 2025. Will this align perfectly with Alpine’s development in the automotive industry?
Of course, this is going in the right direction! F1 and the FIA have understood that they need to follow social awareness in environmental issues. Before, being ecological was a “nice to be” and not a “must have.” No one wants to see Everest submerged in 20 years.
Today, there is a much stronger awareness and this is becoming an almost decisive criterion everywhere, which I find good. All our vehicles, today, are heading towards green and clean energies. Whether we like it or not, all the markets in the world will end up imposing it on us.
These criteria help us in the transfer of technologies, from competition to road cars. If the FIA had let Formula 1 move towards non-clean ultra-performance, it would have posed a problem. No one will buy a car if they are told: “very expensive, it’s an excellent car that pollutes a lot”.
We are perfectly aligned with these considerations. This makes things easier for us, but also for other manufacturers!
