Alpine’s Executive Director Marcin Budkowski fears that teams might collaborate during the development of the single seaters we will see on track next season.

"If there's a year where these kinds of collaborations can pay off, it's this year, for 2022,”  he said.

"Clearly going into 2022, a massive change in regulations, big development slope, lots of performance being gained on these cars, very green fresh set of regulations, the benefits you can get from collaboration, whether it's legal or less so, are massive," explained Budkowski.

"So clearly, if there's a year where we expect the FIA to be really all over it, it's this year."

Alpine is concerned we will see a repeat of what happened with Racing Point in 2019. The now Aston Martin developed their RP20 using an unmistakably similar concept to the one Mercedes used for its W11 the previous year and for that the Silverstone team was penalised for coping the brake ducts.

The FIA stepped in after protests from rival teams, including Renault, and eventually Racing Point was handed out a fine and a 15 points deduction in the constructor’s standings. In the wake of that ordeal, the FIA modified the regulations on the matter to try and prevent similar situations from taking place in the future.

Budkowski, however, still appears uncertain that it will be enough.

"I don't know what's going on in other people's factories, and I don't know what level of scrutiny the FIA is putting on this," he explained. "There's a concern there but I can't say how much, I'm not going to accuse people because effectively I don't know. And I hope that there is nothing happening."

"Us as an independent team, obviously we don't come under scrutiny of sharing anything with our competitors, because it would be against our own interests,” continued the Executive Director.

Indeed while all teams from the midfield down are costumers of the bigger front row teams Ferrari-Mercedes-Red Bull, Alpine with its Renault engine is completely independent.

"The Formula 1 I think we'd all like to see is 10 teams or 11, or 12, in the future, that just fight each other mercilessly and are just there for their own sporting success,” he stated.

"And from the moment that teams have a common interest in exchanging information, that's a problem, because it shouldn't be the case, you shouldn't be helping your competitors.”