Alfa Romeo technical director Jan Monchaux has confirmed that the team will bring updates to Imola, but are now turning their attention to the 2022 sporting regulations.
The Hinwil-based outfit showed small signs of improvement during the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, with Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi finishing 11th and 12th respectively as the team appeared to separate themselves from Haas and Williams.
However, Monchaux admitted that they would have to manage this season without many more major upgrades.
“The updates that we’re bringing to Imola were completed two or three weeks ago,” he told Auto Motor und Sport.
“We have a couple of updates coming. We’ll probably have to live with that. The engineers are now being pushed onto the 2022 project.
“If someone thinks in the summer that we should push behind another package, then that would have to be tackled two months in advance. People have to come back from the other project, come up with ideas, go into the wind tunnel. It doesn’t just happen, otherwise we’d be five seconds faster.”
While stopping development on the C41 will limit the team’s hopes of success this season, Monchaux said that not having sufficient focus on the new regulations could have “serious consequences”.
“It would have very serious consequences for the 2022 project, which would be disrupted,” he added.
“Nor does it even prove that we would find a lot more than a tenth with a lot of effort. Hopefully we’ll save ourselves that, because otherwise there is a risk.”
Alfa Romeo are not the only team turning their focus to 2022 early on, with Haas team principal Guenther Steiner recently admitting that his team were following a similar strategy.
While this approach will hopefully bear fruit for Alfa Romeo in the long-run, Monchaux admitted that keeping the focus on 2021 could lead to some short-term success.
“2017 was the last major change to the regulations,” he said.
“For reasons, the team was unable to do its job properly back then. The car was four and a half, five seconds behind everyone. We still suffer from it. If you start with such a handicap under these rules, it’s over.
“You’re not catching that up again. The others don’t necessarily go to the Caribbean in winter. They also keep working all the time. It is extremely important for us that the first car (in 2022) is right in the middle of this very different set of regulations. Then we no longer have a massive handicap.
“That would stir up hope that in the years to come, we will be in the upper midfield rather than constantly struggling not to be last or second last.”