The Alpine team introduced two important novelties for the 2022 Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix in its single-seater, the A522, with a modification to the sidepod and a special rear wing for the long Baku straights.
From the first moment of the weekend, the car “seemed to go fast”, as Fernando Alonso pointed out when he finished the first day of free practice in fifth and fourth place, although the work still needed to be finished on Saturday and, above all, on Sunday .
However, in qualifying they did not get the result they expected, since the man from Oviedo came last in the final round of Q3, and was forced to start from tenth position in the race. With a very fast single-seater in the flat sections, Alonso was recovering places with the medium tire, and thanks to the abandonment of the Ferrari and the problems in the rear wing of Yuki Tsunoda, he managed to climb to seventh and final place.
After getting off the Alpine, the Asturian gave his impressions of the eighth round of the course in which he was able to add 6 more points to place himself in 11th position , tying with Pierre Gasly with 16 units each: “We suffered a little more with the tires We had very little downforce on the straights than we expected.”
“We were going very fast and that helped us to maintain the position, but at the same time, we were wearing out the wheels a lot, and for me, keeping the rear tires alive was the biggest challenge today,” acknowledged the two-time world champion driver. .
Asked how he was able to retain that seventh place ahead of the two McLarens in the final moments, Fernando Alonso said: “We knew we had this extra speed, and I was aware that they expected a failure, so I was trying to do the last few corners well, calmly, and believed that I could hold the position.
“We made a good start, strategy and pit stop, and when you do that in Baku, normally you always win a place due to the chaos that is generated in front of you,” explained the man from Oviedo. “We started tenth and finished seventh, we leave Barcelona, Monaco and here with good points, so now to continue in Canada”.
Thanks to this race, the driver from Alpine has become the driver with the longest career in Formula 1, surpassing Michael Schumacher’s record of 21 years and three months, and will be able to beat Kimi Raikkonen’s mark for the most grand prix in the Monza appointment in mid-September.
