A round of applause for the brave Alfa Romeo presented the C43 in Zurich and showed a real car, redesigned. In times of models and decorations, showing real weapons and not toy pistols is a declaration of intent on the part of the Sauber team. The car that Bottas and Zhou will drive, with a Ferrari engine, looks classy in red and black. Its technical director and father of the child, Jan Monchaux, advances changes “mainly in the rear.”
“We identified areas where there was potential to unlock that we were unable to develop in 2022. We focused on the rear end, we wanted to be brave enough to develop it with other solutions. We also lost some reliability last year and we have focused on recovering it during the winter”, says the engineer, who expands on the news: “We changed the rear end, the gearbox fit and the suspension. That alters the airflow. With last year’s concept, we thought we had reached an impasse. The front end will be developed during the season”. The slight rule change on the flat bottom means “a loss of a second per lap, and it will be a matter of seeing how much you can recover during the season,” he says.
Nice cars always look fast. “He is my baby and I will never say that he is ugly. Fast? We’ll see at the start of the season. But we have to be patient, we have homework in the winter tests to prepare for those first races”, says Monchaux, who predicts an even more compressed midsection and irrelevant ‘porpoising’: “I hope it won’t be recurring, because we only have three test days and if we come across a similar situation, it would be a nightmare. Which is what happened in Barcelona last year. With the metrics we have, this issue can be delayed, because you cannot get rid of the phenomenon, to the point that it does not appear”.
The embryo of Audi
The presentation was officiated by Alessandro Alunni Bravi, the strong man of the team, before the watchful eye of Andreas Seidl, brand new CEO of Sauber who replaces Fréd Vasseur. It is a team with long-term goals: 2023 will be his last year under the Alfa Romeo umbrella; in 2024 and 2025 they will compete as Sauber, to dry, and from 2026 they will be the official Audi team and will incorporate the engine developed by the German firm.
Bottas is the project leader. The 33-year-old Finn (10th in 2022) now lives free from the chains of Mercedes and Hamilton. He has another face, also another aspect with his Australian footballer hairstyle. “I expect more consistency, more points and better results, but there is a lot of work in the details to get to that situation”, expects Valtteri. The Chinese zhou it was a worthy rookies last year (18th, six points) who must demonstrate a leap in quality. The reserve is French pourchairewho will compete in F2.