Alonso plays down copycat innovations by teams

Fernando Alonso reckons it will be very difficult for teams to appropriate a rival's innovative idea, insisting that original design features are usually a fundamental element of a car's overall package.

As F1 kicked into gear at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona on Wednesday, teams displayed in broad daylight their concepts and interpretations of this year's radical new technical regulations.

While it's early days still, eagle-eye engineers are making the most every opportunity to investigate and scrutinize the works of their peers, identifying any bold ideas that may provide a specific car an edge.

Asked if he was also attentive to the creations of other teams, Alonso said that he wasn't looking at any specific details.

"No, that’s for you guys and for social media," quipped the Alpine driver.

"It’s like everyone is an expert, you know, on fins, and you see a detail on the car and are just like ‘oh, a big fin!’."

Alonso said that a team can't just replicate a rival's innovative idea or concept, as the latter is part of a package of elements the sum of which produce a desired result.

"I think no-one has any idea of how a whole package works because the flow starts on the front wing and then it works differently for each of the cars," he said.

"So it’s not that you can see something in one car and immediately copy on your car. Because maybe the flow is not going through that particular section of the car.

"I think it’s a very difficult exercise to do. So, yeah, I don’t know – I like the cars, the look they have, as a general concept I think they looked good, but not [looking] in the details of performance."

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However, the same may not be said for Alpine's technical director Pat Fry will be closely watching other teams' developments in the early part of the season to pinpoint which creative features or iterations of the new rules could be worth investigating.

The British engineer is predicting a big development battle in the coming months.

"The first two tests and the early races there’s going to be a massive step in learning," explained.

"We’ve obviously had our own ideas of what this set of rules means. We’re going to see nine other options of what that is. We’ll try and pick the best pieces out of everything.

"We’re learning all the time in our own windtunnel. We get the luxury of looking at the results of nine other windtunnels. So we can actually understand and just make a better car.

"There’s going to be a huge increase in performance. And we’ve already got a load of upgrades coming through for the second test and the first race.

"So this development battle is under way, but it will really step up once we start analysing closely what all the other cars’ solutions are."

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