David Croft shares worrying news about one F1 team’s simulator performance ahead of 2024 season

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Sky Sports commentator David Croft has heard some worrying news from Alpine about how their car is performing on the simulator ahead of next season.

After a middling campaign in 2023, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon will be hoping the French team can get their act together in the winter.

However, speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast, David Croft admitted that the signs weren’t good at this stage of development.

It’s been a tough 12 months for Alpine as they went from being the fourth-strongest team on the grid to falling behind McLaren and Aston Martin.

Hiring Pierre Gasly as Fernando Alonso’s replacement looks like a shrewd move, but they might be left to rue missing out on academy star Oscar Piastri after he made the switch to McLaren.

The team failed to keep up with their rivals in the development race in 2023, and Ocon was named the unluckiest driver of the season thanks to his reliability issues.

Ocon admitted earlier in the year that he had already been testing Alpine’s 2024 car on the simulator, but David Croft has some concerning news on that front.

Alpine would have known that they needed to make some serious strides forward over the winter, with AlphaTauri likely to be more of a threat going forward considering their close partnership with Red Bull.

That means they’ve likely made some big changes to the car, but they don’t appear to be working.

Croft shares worrying update over Alpine’s simulator work

Speaking about the sixth-best team on the F1 grid, Croft said: “Look, Davide [Brivio] is departing the team, I would imagine Bruno [Famin] has had a hand in that.

“And I think that’s a good thing, there seem to be a lot of chiefs at Alpine and probably a few more chiefs than they needed.

“Matt Harman I think has slotted into his role well, so things might be happening behind the scenes that will bring more success in the future.

“But, look I hear at the moment that their car is not where they want it to be on the sim in terms of performance for next season and Bruno will be judged on that because as team principal he has to oversee that engineering side.

“It’s another team for whom next year is a very big year.

“To finish fourth in 2022 was good work, to bring Pierre Gasly in for last year I think was good, solid work.”

Alpine fans will hope that Croft’s concerns about their simulator performance are fixed over the next few weeks.

Testing in Bahrain will give teams a much better idea of where their cars are and what needs to be worked on ahead of the first race of the season.

Ocon and Gasly will be aware of the team’s potential after they both secured fantastic podium finishes in 2023.

They’ll be hoping that becomes the norm next year and not a distant memory with another two years until the next set of regulation changes.