Alpine wants to fight for the Q3 in Bahrain

During the Barcelona tests, Alpine was limited in terms of performance by running with a full tank and without DRS. But in Bahrain, Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon were able to demonstrate a certain potential for the A522.

If the Spanish driver achieved the third best time last Saturday, the team’s sporting director Alan Permane sees very positive things in the car.

« Fernando is not thrilled yet, he still wants to go faster and still finds some issues with the car, but he is already happier,” explains Permane. « He drove with a very heavy fuel load for a good part of the day and you will see a jump in the times. We put on the new C3s at the end of the day and he said, “Wow, the car is fast.” He was really pleased and could really feel the performance. He wasn’t at a qualifying level, in a low load, but we were at full load before that. So he is much happier. »

« But once you start getting used to this level of grip and speed, then you start to find some small problems here and there,” he continues. » The drivers are not, I wouldn’t say, ecstatic, and we don’t expect to have the pole position, but I hope we’ll be in the mix and fight for Q3,” admits the sports director of Alpine.

To explain the difference in performance of the A522 between Barcelona and Bahrain, Permane reveals that there have been no major changes, only that the team has managed to understand the car.

« I think in hindsight, I would say that we were not stressed,” he confesses. « The performance was there. We were satisfied. I don’t know if people believed us or not, but we were not in panic. I think now we have showed where we stand. I still don’t really know the hierarchy, but I know that we are well positioned. We are not miles behind as we may have thought in Barcelona […], we just need to put things in place,” Alan Permane asserts.

(D) We haven’t changed any specific part or made any specific adjustments. Things are just falling into place, he concluded.