Alfa Romeo's 2023 Formula 1 car poised to boost team in constructors standings

MANILA: According to Jan Monchaux, the team's Technical Director, Alfa Romeo's 2023 Formula 1 car, the C43, includes a number of significant changes at the rear compared to its forerunner. In an effort to improve upon a P6 place in the constructors' standings from the previous season, Alfa Romeo unveiled their new challenger and new livery for the 2023 F1 season last Tuesday.

Monchaux oversaw "a major change of architecture" at the rear-end during the winter months, covering the suspension, gearbox, cooling layout, bodywork, and more — all while taking into account ride height and diffuser rule tweaks. Despite the fact the 2023 Alfa Romeo C43 is described as an "evolution" over the C42.

Following a significant reset last year, F1's rules are essentially unchanged in 2023, although there are several notable technical and sporting adjustments for the upcoming season.

For the second half of the 2022 season, a set of floor-based flexibility and monitoring measures was introduced, and more have been proposed for 2023. The floor edges have been elevated by 15mm, the diffuser throat height has been raised, the diffuser edge stiffness has been increased, and an additional sensor has been required to more effectively monitor the porpoising phenomenon. In short, four more improvements will be in place this year.

At the unveiling of an Alfa Romeo vehicle, Monchaux said: “We identified areas where we thought there was still potential for us to unleash, potential we wouldn’t be able to unleash in the 2022 season.

“We concentrated mainly on the rear part of the car, where we just wanted to be brave enough to do the next step in terms of pure development on the rear end, which opened the door to a lot of other solutions we couldn’t implement last year.”

The dramatic new livery for Alfa Romeo's new vehicle replaces the white and red color scheme utilized in recent advertisements with a red and black palette.

The Alfa, like all Ferrari-powered vehicles last year, carried significantly more radiator space low to the ground and forward, emphasizing the large, bluff sidepod fronts and low cooling outlets at the back. The bluff sidepods were aerodynamically successful in producing the intended airflow outwash, preventing the underbody's flow from being hampered by the flow around the front of the sidepods.

Alfa Romeo's pursuit of performance, Monchaux continued, has been accompanied with a focus on dependability for the team going into the new season after multiple incidents in 2022 where points were lost because of component failures.

“Throughout the course of the season, it also became relatively clear that we had reliability issues, so there [are> a lot of things we changed on the car, but also internally in terms of processes to address that topic,” said Monchaux.

Alfa Romeo is also using the F1 Authentics website to auction off the Alfa Romeo C43 display car that was utilized for the presentation. It is the first of a planned series of 2023 Alfa Romeo display cars and was built by UK-based sports memorabilia expert Memento Exclusives. It is anticipated to sell for more than £400,000 at auction.

The dramatic new livery for Alfa Romeo's new vehicle replaces the white and red color scheme from recent advertisements with a red and black palette.

Later this week, Alfa Romeo will test the C43 in Barcelona before the 10 F1 teams go for Bahrain to conduct preseason testing from February 23 to 25. Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu will continue to serve as Alfa Romeo's drivers for the 2023 season as the team looks to improve on their P6 constructors' standing from the previous year.

The 2023 Formula One season will have a record-breaking 24 races, beginning on March 5 in Bahrain and ending on November 26 in Abu Dhabi. For a Saturday night race, Las Vegas will serve as the halfway point and will welcome back China and Qatar.

The customary summer break will still take place in August, but due to changes in race schedules, Hungary and Belgium will now race back-to-back at the end of July, and once the 2023 Formula One season resumes, the Netherlands will be paired with Italy.

The 2023 F1 calendar is available below.

February 23-25	Pre-season testing	Sakhir
March 5	Bahrain	Sakhir
March 19	Saudi Arabia	Jeddah
April 2	Australia	Melbourne
April 16	China	Shanghai
April 30	Azerbaijan	Baku
May 7	Miami	Miami
May 21	Emilia Romagna	Imola
May 28	Monaco	Monaco
June 4	Spain	Barcelona
June 18	Canada	Montreal
July 2	Austria	Spielberg
July 9	United Kingdom	Silverstone
July 23	Hungary	Budapest
July 30	Belgium	Spa
August 27	Netherlands	Zandvoort
September 3	Italy	Monza
September 17	Singapore	Singapore
September 24	Japan	Suzuka
October 8	Qatar	Lusail
October 22	USA	Austin
October 29	Mexico	Mexico City
November 5	Brazil	Sao Paulo
November 18	Las Vegas	Las Vegas*
November 26	Abu Dhabi	Yas Marina
*Subject to FIA circuit homologation

 

Photos from Formula 1

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