Alpine too trialed the McLaren-like digital light panel to check if it works as it notes F1 car weight is not an issue in running them.
McLaren initially trialed the digital light-panel around the cockpit last year during FP1 of US GP. At the start of the 2023 F1 season, the Woking-based outfit confirmed using the new advertising form for all of the grands prix this year starting from Bahrain.
They also informed that the panel has been kept exclusive for Chrome. McLaren is not the only team to have trialed this as Pat Fry revealed that Alpine did so too at the end of last year – probably during a private testing that they had multiple times.
Fry reckons the new-age technology is good to test and even run to give new options to sponsors. Questions were raised about the weight situation considering F1 teams struggling to balance it, the Alpine chief technical officer saw no problems with it.
He noted that the weight of running the panel ranges in grams and not kilos which doesn’t create any issue. “I think it is of obvious interest,” said Fry. “We actually ran it at the end of last year, in testing, just to thought-prove the concepts and it’s the next step isn’t it really?
“I’m sure something along those lines we need to move forward in technologies in all areas, don’t we? The weight of that design was relatively minimal really. I can’t remember the numbers off the top of my head, but you’re talking 100 or 200 grammes or something rather than kilos.
“So it is within the realms of if you’re on the weight limit, it’s not a penalty as such. So I guess we all just need to get to that point, don’t we,” summed up the Alpine chief. The technical heads of Mercedes and Aston Martin agreed with Fry with regards to utilisation of new technology for the show overall.
“It’s probably not my area of expertise but I think anything that we can do to better engage with the fans, better engage with people on TV is a good thing,” said Mike Elliot, while Dan Fallows added: “It’s not my area of expertise as well but again, I think, anything we can do that improves the show in any way is a good thing really.”
Here’s the sponsor list for F1 2023: https://formularapida.net/f1-2023-list-of-partners-sponsors-for-each-of-the-10-teams/
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Here’s McLaren using new advertising
