Fernando Alonso causes a stir with a thesis – He sees Alpine in fifth and sixth place in Formula 1 – Esteban Ocon sees it differently
“We had to overtake a few cars and then we were back in our natural positions – fifth and sixth.” Fernando Alonso sees Alpine as the third power behind Ferrari and Red Bull – and ahead of Mercedes – after the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix
“The pace is better than what our results say,” said the two-time world champion after his technical retirement. “We gave away some points today. I’m happy with the performance, but we dropped points. We could easily be sixth or seventh in the championship. But we gave away too many points.”
Still, he sees good opportunities for himself and Alpine in the 2022 Formula One season. “In 2012, I fought for the title in the third-best car. I’m used to that kind of thing,” he says.
When asked specifically if he really sees himself in the third-best car, he then dodges the question, “I don’t know. The Alfa is fast on some, Haas was very fast in Bahrain. [George] Russell [in the Mercedes] was okay today, but not outstanding. That’s where we are at the moment. Now it’s up to us to make progress. “
“Maybe we are not third best. But it looks like we have consistency in our pace. Without the breakdown, we would have been sixth and seventh. There’s still a long way to go, but I feel like we’re fast. “
Mercedes as motivation
His teammate Esteban Ocon, on the other hand, doesn’t think Alpine can match Mercedes at the moment. “Russell was faster than us,” said the Frenchman after the race. “He didn’t pull away as much as we thought he would, but he still pulled away. So they have an advantage in pace. We have to work on that.”
He had still managed to beat Russell in qualifying. But team boss Otmar Szafnauer agrees: “In the race they were clearly ahead of us here [in Saudi Arabia]. I don’t know if they might have had difficulties in qualifying. We will give everything to fight with them. But here they had the better car for the race. “
He speaks of a “super tight midfield” where the main issue is who develops the fastest: “The learning curve with this car is extremely steep. We have to keep getting performance into the car. It won’t be where it is now tomorrow if we don’t find performance to the same extent as the others. And of course we are trying to be faster in the process. “
The fact that Mercedes is within reach is an added motivation, “That’s our drive to keep working hard. It will take a few more races at different tracks to really establish the pecking order. And then, as I said, it will be a development race. “
New engine vulnerable but fast
In any case, Alpine has made a step forward with the engine. The new, radical design with a two-part turbo (turbine and compressor are far apart) seems to deliver on its promise – also as far as reliability problems are concerned, but above all in terms of performance.
“It’s on par with the others now,” says Alonso. “We were able to fight with the others on the straights in both Bahrain and Jeddah. Unfortunately, we still have to analyse exactly what happened in Bahrain and here with the engine.” Ocon, too, confirms that Alpine “doesn’t have to be afraid of anyone” on the straights anymore.
