Despite the serious crash during the Australian Grand Prix, the Alpine team can bring the planned upgrades to the sprint race weekend in Azerbaijan. After the incident between Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, the question was whether the update could be put on the car, because Otmar Szafnauer thought it was more important that the spare parts were prioritized. In the end, Alpine can breathe a sigh of relief, because both chassis are fine.
At the second restart of the Australian Grand Prix, a good race from Alpine ended in a minor way due to a crash between Gasly and Ocon. Nevertheless, team boss Szafnauer is satisfied with the lessons the team has learned that weekend. “First of all, although helped by DRS, we were able to stay with the Ferrari of (Carlos, ed.) Sainz and even without DRS, we could keep Lance’s (Stroll, ed.) Aston Martin behind us,” said the American at F1 Nation podcast. “So those were the positives of that race.”
After the race, the Alpine team immediately set to work to see if it could produce spare parts. “And that’s a huge effort from everyone here.” Although the team had to focus on repairing the damage, the racing team was also able to get started with the planned updates. “So we will go to Baku with the planned upgrade. It probably took an hour or two for everyone to get together and then the situation was still uncertain because you definitely have to prioritize spare parts over the upgrade.”
Both chassis Alpine in order
The team could also use some luck after the crash and it did, because the chassis were okay. They were repairable. So we haven’t lost one.’ The drivers also made up with each other in the free weeks. “Either of them may have initially thought it was their own fault. So if you have a fifty-fifty situation, you know they didn’t see it coming. It was a racing incident,” the Alpine team boss concluded.
