The Alpine Formula 1 team has released a lengthy open letter addressing claims that it is "sabotaging" Franco Colapinto's car.

Those claims circled on social media around the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, suggesting there was a specification difference between Colapinto's car and that of Pierre Gasly.

It later emerged that this stemmed from the team finding a gearbox problem just before the Shanghai weekend, which led to small differences in parts between the cars as Colapinto returned to an older part from testing.

Colapinto also talked of the "front wing underdelivering"= and said it was something "that we still need to understand more" on Thursday at the Japanese GP.

But as part of a fresh push back against online abuse in the wake of Colapinto and Ollie Bearman's frightening incident in Sunday's race at Suzuka, Alpine released a detailed open letter in which it sought to "clarify" spurious claims of "sabotage".

It read: "The team endeavours to put the two fastest cars on track and provide equal opportunity for both drivers to be competitive and score important points for the team in the championship.

"In some instances, given the need to fast-track parts and carefully manage the manufacturing process, the team is only able to bring select parts or upgrades to some events.

"However, that is never the intended or desired approach, as, if the part is a performance upgrade as we hope and intend, then we want it available on both cars immediately.

"This has remained the case this year and both Pierre and Franco have been running with the same equipment, barring some small low-performance impacting parts in China due to switching gearbox components.

"Franco is our driver and the team has placed its trust in him, just as he has with the team. That is an indication of the commitment we have to Franco and his place in the team with equal footing alongside Pierre.

"Any questions about sabotage or not giving Franco the same car are completely unfounded, which is why the team felt the need to speak out. There might be times this year when pushing in the development race that upgrades come to one car first, which the team will communicate and be completely transparent about. That being said, the aim will always remain to bring upgrades to both cars where possible.

"It's absolutely not in the team's interests to not score points and any suggestion of self-sabotage isn't conducive to that ultimate end goal. From the opening races, the team finds itself in a strong position and the team is not counting on its laurels and is staying grounded.

"At the last two races, the team has been the fourth-fastest car and we know we have to work incredibly hard to stay there and have two cars regularly in with a chance of scoring points."

Unacceptable abuse

Alpine also felt the need to "once again speak out against the hate and abuse being aimed at not just one of our own drivers, but also aimed towards our racing counterparts and other members of the Formula 1 family".

Having had to do the same for previous incidents, the team said its stance on online abuse "hasn't changed and remains the same", and felt it had made an oversight in its handling of the fallout from Colapinto's crash with Esteban Ocon in China.

Ocon accepted the blame for that clash and sought out Colapinto after the race to apologise.

The FIA said last week it had reached out to Alpine and Haas over the issue as it was "deeply concerned by death threats targeting" Ocon after the race.

Alpine's letter continued continued: "This isn’t about one particular fanbase, it's about the entire Formula 1 community coming together to enjoy the sport we all love and are passionate about.

"The team condemns the hateful messages aimed towards Franco after last weekend’s race in Japan, the same way it condemns the abuse and threats that were aimed towards Esteban Ocon following a collision between the two cars at the Chinese Grand Prix.

"The two drivers were racing hard and fighting for position and Esteban took full responsibility and apologised to Franco, actively seeking him out in the media pen and also apologising on social media.

"The resulting abuse that followed was not in the spirit of the sport and was an oversight not to call it out sooner. Abuse of any kind to all drivers is unacceptable and it was especially disappointing that it comes from a minority of fans of the team towards a driver who has given so much to the team in the past and is a grand prix winner for Alpine.

"Subsequently, the team also condemns the hateful behaviour towards Franco following the incident with Ollie Bearman at Suzuka. First of all, the most important thing is the safety and wellbeing of the drivers and thankfully Ollie is OK. The closing speeds are a characteristic of these cars and as stated by the FIA, it's something that will be closely reviewed in the coming weeks.

"The FIA also reviewed the incident involving Franco and Ollie during the race and deemed that no further action was necessary.

"The team closely monitors its channels and uses certain tools to moderate comments that don't meet the criteria of our community guidelines. It's something we as a team also remain in regular dialogue with Formula 1 and the FIA about and collectively want to tackle and mitigate in future."