Szafnauer: Alpine needs to have a better race pace

Alpine continues to search for its rhythm. At the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, both Alpine cars driven by Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon finished outside the points. However, the team principal of team Alpine, Otmar Szafnauer, believes that the A522s showed good lap times during qualifying, especially Alonso’s.

For this Italian weekend, Fernando Alonso had the opportunity to try out a brand new floor on the Alpine, and it seems that this change has paid off since the double world champion started fifth on the grid. Despite this good result, he was forced to retire during the race after a collision with Mick Schumacher.

As for his French teammate, he crossed the finish line in eleventh position after a gearbox problem dropped him to the back of the starting grid. Furthermore, his penalty of five seconds ultimately placed him fourteenth in Imola. His engineers released him too early while Lewis Hamilton was approaching him in the pit lane.

According to Szafnauer, qualifying showed the good pace of the cars. The good news is that the car is fast, said Szafnauer. Our lap pace is good, we just need to work on our race pace. The bad news is that Esteban was at the back due to a gearbox issue. And with his start in 19th position, I think it’s rather good that he finished 11th. But it’s frustrating because Fernando was fast enough to be 5th and once again didn’t score any points. Mick spun and he crashed into him, and that was the end of his race, he explained. The French team has not been spared technical problems in the early part of the season. Alpine is currently sixth in the constructors’ standings, just three points behind Alfa Romeo, but already far from the podium.