P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to the Alpine car launch

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

Alpine reveal the A523 at a 'conference' in London. Matt and Tommy react to the new livery and the launch, before sharing an exciting story from their day at Red Bull Racing.Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok.***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P-1 podcast with Man Tommy. Welcome back. It is the final car launch of the year. And it is Alpine. It's been and gone. I don't know why I'm speaking like it's in present tense and it's coming up. It's already happened. In fact, whilst we're recording this, it's still happening because it felt rather long.

Tommy saw the car, closed the tab immediately. Did you not co-founder Tom Bellingham? I did indeed, thank you, co-founder. Yeah, it was, there you go, I said it for you. Thank you. Yeah. The usual Alpine launch, very, how do I say this politely? Conference.

I think they even called it a conference, which is not the most exciting of words, is it? Why would you title it a conference? It's not even really a conference. There wasn't people sat around a table and actually, to be fair, the vibes were similar to a conference because the host, bless her. Oh, no. She tried to get some interaction from the crowd, There was quite a few people there as well.

Just went, oh, you know, are we ready? And it was like tumbleweed. There was not a single peep before they showed the two cars. And I was just sat there. It was eating me alive. We were watching it live on Twitch. Matt P1, Tommy. Dreckon is because of the, sorry, Drecon is because of the...

Tommy, let me do the promo for our Twitch account. And then we can talk about serious stuff. We were live on Twitch. Matt P1, Tommy. Yes, Tommy. Sorry, yes. Do you reckon part of that was because Ferrari had that hype thing with the fans and then maybe halfway through, they'd already made it as a conference and then went, oh, no, the Ferrari launch was really good and everyone really liked it. So they've written in some extra lines for the presenter to say like, hype the crowd up, get everyone cheering and whooping and stuff. But then it's a conference and it's just a bit of a dead set up. Yeah, she did a good job, to be fair. I've never seen that presenter before,

but I do wonder why some teams decide to get presenters that aren't particularly up to speed with Formula One. You could kind of tell she was reading stats off of the Auto Q and things like that just kind of add a little bit of a weird feeling, I think, for Formula One fans personally. I'd rather see a personality that at least knows the sport a bit and can just kind of interact with the drivers a bit easier and whatnot. But, you know, that's just car launch livery, you know,

car launch livery, just car launch season. I don't know why it was a livery. It wasn't livery. It was two livery. Tommy, two cars came out and wow, where do I begin with the first and main car? So the other one, the pink one is going to be featured for three races, the first three races of the season. The better livery, once again, in my opinion.

The other one has taken a very large step back, in my opinion. I got used to the previous livery. It took a little while. Now it looks unfinished. This is where the problem of this whole carbon era of Formula One and not painting their cars really, yeah, really does kind of surface quite heavily, I would say, because of course teams are going to prioritize going quickly than looking good on the track, even though they'll have to make sure their sponsors are okay with the car looking not so great. But I don't think anyone, not anyone in their right mind who's a livery designer or a fan or just a human being breathing would have chosen that as delivery. there wasn't, you know, if they weren't thinking about the time gained on track. Yeah, it's annoying because I liked, I got used to the Alpine like you. I kind of liked it by the end of the season.

And they've got rid of some of the bits like there was a bit, it was a bit messy with the red and they've got rid of that. But then it's just been ruined by the fact that, like you say, they've, they're doing this whole carbon thing now. And what's even worse is they've got this big bulbous kind of side pod feature thing that the Mercedes also has, and that's all painted black. So it kind of looks like it's being sort of all the paints getting eaten away by all the black. And if you think that you mentioned about kind of liveries and teams want to paint their cars, obviously Mercedes had the joy of being able

to go, let's go carbon or other teams going black. But Alpine are in a situation where they need to kind of have their traditional blue for the road cars and pink as sponsor for BWT, which is clearly in their rules and part of the sponsor deal. But they're also now going, oh, we need to wait save as well. And oh, my word, it just looks a bit. It's too much going on. And it's a shame because I wanted to like it because it's nice that there's actually a unique color in pink on the grid. But I do like the pink one at least. It is like a bit of a virus that's come over the grid this year and the black just kind of spreading across all of the cars. And It is a little bit of a concerning time, I would say.

As I say, I kind of got used to the blue and pink from previous and the fact that it was, you know, the majority was that colour, whereas now it is three different colours. Blue, black and pink just do not go, in my opinion. And look, the pink is going to look banging for the first three races. I'm looking forward to that. And it's not as bad because realistically, it is just two colours, pink and black. And it merges a lot nicer than trying to get three in for the rest of the season.

But hey, I'm sure they won't care as long as they're quick. Yeah, hopefully, though, quick. Because, yeah, they were targeting podiums, which was bold, I guess, from the, who was that talking at the start? I didn't actually catch his name, but CEO of something. CEO of Alpine. That's who will, well, CEO of someone. It might not have been Alpine. I don't know.

Mr. Important Man, because he was the first person talking. But yeah, he was claiming podium, which is a. bold claim after what happened last year with the three teams running away? They hoped. They hoped. They hoped. They hoped for a couple of podiums this year. And I'm like, hmm.

Although to be fair, last time you doubted Alpine Tommy, they finished fourth in the constructors and you had to buy merchandise for them. I'm saying nothing. I don't want to buy any more merch from Alpine. Thank you. So let's sort of go back to the launch a second because the other thing was that they definitely started late as well. They just had a rolling advert for what felt like. quite a long time, at least on the Alpine channels. And it kind of, it reminded you of a few years ago, Tommy, when they tried to,

did they try and do, I think it was the social coverage. They tried to do over the phone, wasn't it? It was something like they'd do a live. No, they did their launch when they first did Alpine sort of, that had been 2021. Was it the first, first Alpine? And yeah, it was, it started like buffering and glitching and stuff and it didn't go particularly well. But I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like all the Alpine launches have

been the same where they've done this kind of conference thing. It's very, dare I say, sort of early 2000s Formula One where you have like a big event. It's very sponsor friendly. And yeah, we saw a lot of adverts. I don't know. There must have been about eight different Alpine adverts. Ghazly and Okon just on a loop. They filmed a lot of them.

I feel like they've used their entire catalogue of a year's worth of adverts into one car launch that they've just decided to slap all of them on. But hey, that's fine. That's the way Alpine want to do it. All good. You know what was the most exciting thing for me about this Alpine launch? Go on. The end of car launches and we can actually see some Formula One cars on track.

Next week, Formula One testing. Can you believe it? It's come around so quickly now. Well, it felt like forever when we were in it, but now car launches have been happening. I can't believe that this time next week we'll be testing. It'll be it. We'll know that Ferrari are the best team in the world and put the right tires on. Keep going.

Keep going, Tommy. I like to hear that. So if you're wondering what we actually think of each car livery and where we rank them, then don't worry. We've got a video coming your way or a podcast or wherever you absorb your content from Matt P1, Tommy. Now, before we go, let's talk about how do we think Alpine is going to do this year? So you've got Esteban Okon and Pierre Gazley. And we both predicted in our season predictions that Ghazli may well have a bit of a struggle this year with the change of team going up against Ocon and coming off the back of not particularly great season

with Al-Fa-Tauri before he left. I am not convinced that Al-Pin will be in the top four. I think that they could be, they're definitely going to take a step backwards in my opinion. Alonso, as much as he didn't score as many points as Ocon last year, I felt like Fernando really did do a good amount for that team to push them forward and sort of take the cards to places that it didn't belong. But, yeah, I don't think them in the top four, maybe fifth or sixth.

Yeah, well, I've made my bold prediction that they were going to, like Astor Martin would be fourth. So obviously they're not going to be in the top three. that's not going to happen, he says. Here we go. Top three for our being confirmed. Ferrari are going to be eighth quickest. Yeah.

So I would say fifth or sixth. It depends how many times Ockon and Gassley crash into each other. Which could be a lot. Let's be real here. They say that it's all water under the bridge. They're all sorted. This was a while ago. But when you have beef like that,

when you crop someone out of your Instagram photo, there is some solid. beef there whether it's all been cleared up whether the beef has gone we do not know but we will find out when they're side by side going towards oh rouge towards oh rouge let's try and actually say that without dribbling and uh then we'll see then we'll see how good friends they are yeah you're right that's the thing it's very easy in a nice studio for your car launch to be like yeah we're we're friends everything's great but then when you're actually racing it's quite you know it's very different. And we said it before we started recording this podcast. You know, O'Con has been

very racy with his teammates in the past. And now it's someone that, and, you know, Gazzley doesn't like getting beat either. So could be very fruity indeed. Fruity indeed. Thank you so much, Tommy, for your insights on this. Do we want to tell everyone the Mac's story before we go? I think we should. Okay, so let's tell you a very quick story time. Today, we were out. We went outside. Very exciting.

This is what P1. The mission statement is going outside. We went to Red Bull today and let's sum it up in a nice quick way because you may well see it on social media before you see this or hear this. So you may already know. But Tommy, he has a child called Grace. And last year, Grace ruined the Formula One World Championship for Ferrari fans because every time Tommy put Grace into a Max Verstappen

onesie that he had so kindly bought her. Max won every single time. And when she didn't wear it, he didn't win. And it even worked in football for Leeds United and also a Moto GP rider. So Grace is a magical baby when she wears the onesie. So the onesie became a meme

and lo and behold, we brought the onesie to Red Bull today and Max Verstappen signed the onesie. The onesie. The onesie has been signed. He even wrote thank you, Grace on it for the championship. Twitch chat, absolutely loving this right now. Yeah, unbelievable.

What a way to sign off like our first week at P1. I was absolutely buzzing. I thought we might take a while to get this signed. But shout out to Gemma from Red Bull and a new era who invited us for the day because we had an awesome day. and yeah the fact that we got to have a chat with Max and I've got to tell him the story of the onesie and stuff as well so buzzing.

So cool. And if you want to see the video of that, we'll be putting on social media. Go and check it out right there. Okay, there you go. That's it. Story time over. We'll see you very soon for another video,

Twitch stream podcast, wherever you are. Lots of love. Bye! Bye! P1 is a Stack production and part of the Acast's creator network.