Alpine’s bulbous bodywork on its 2021 Formula 1 car is a technical compromise the team has made to have slimmer sidepods.
The rebranded Renault team’s A521 gathered attention on the opening day of pre-season testing in Bahrain when Esteban Ocon’s maiden run revealed the extent to which the airbox/engine cover combination had ballooned over the winter.
It is a markedly different shape to any other team’s and even drew tongue-in-cheek comparisons to F1’s tall-airbox trend in the 1970s, mainly the Ligier JS5.
Alpine’s executive director Marcin Budkowski described it as a “technical choice”.
“We found that slimming the sidepods was a positive direction, which is nothing new really,” said Budokwski.
“So we’ve repackaged and relocated some of the bulky things in the car and we’ve put them behind the air inlet.
“Yes, it gives a fairly spectacularly bulky shape in the car, but we found it works for us.
“There are centre-of-gravity compromises but usually the aero performance wins over weight and centre of gravity.”
Budkowski’s explanation tallies with The Race’s technical expert Gary Anderson’s theory that it would allow the team to keep the bodywork tighter lower down.
In addition to re-housing some of the car’s internals, another challenge is the impact the wider shape at the top has on airflow, as if it causes separation from the bodywork it can affect the rear wing performance.
But Budkowski’s comments suggest Alpine is confident it has found the solution to be a net aerodynamic gain overall.
