Alpine aware of Red Bull pitfall: 'Then we will never be in front of them'

Alpine Formula 1 Technical Director Matt Harman believes the teamwill not beat Red Bull by copying their dominant RB19. The Enstoneteam has struggled to match the performance of the top tieroutfits, despite showing promising signs throughout the 2022season. Much of the same reliability problems persisted throughout2023, while a significant change of leadership behind the scenescompounded their lack of performance on track. Harman believes theteam has chose the right pathway to focus on its own concept,rather than follow the same route as McLaren who have managed toclose the gap quicker to the 'big three' teams. "We think weunderstand what they're doing. You can't click your fingers andjust imagine it overnight. We understand our direction. But I thinkwe've also understood some of the other cars on the grid as well,"Harman told Autosport . "There are some other great cars there aswell that have got some really interesting developments. And it'sabout trying to understand what you're doing, what they're doing."Harman: It's a real mantra for us to succeed Harman believescopying another team means you are constantly behind on latestdevelopments, which means beating them on track will be a struggle."In the end, if we just follow those people, we will never be infront of them," he explained. "I think it's a real mantra for usthat we need to be inspired by these people, but we need to followour own way."