Fernando Alonso begins the 2022 season with renewed hopes after seeing the performance of the Alpine A522, with which he will try to improve the fifth position in the constructors’ championship that he achieved last year together with Esteban Ocon.
The two-time champion attended the FIA press conference, which has moved to Friday after the restructuring of the weekend, and in it he commented on the first impressions he has about the course that begins in Bahrain.
When asked if the French car could be one of the leaders and give him the opportunity to fight for victories, the Spaniard said: “I don’t know, nobody knows. At the moment, I think the tests have had ups and downs for everyone. And I think we’ve had good days, especially the last two here.”
“We’ve made a lot of progress with the car so we’re happy with how we approach race one now, but tomorrow in qualifying I guess we’ll find out how everyone performs,” Alpine continued.
“And from there we will continue forward. I think the season is going to be long, 23 races, a lot of development in the cars. So it’s not about how you start tomorrow, but how they develop in the two or three first months of the year.
“So we are working flat out, and the team is very optimistic about it…” said Alonso, who was also asked if he was enjoying the cars created under the new technical rules that are intended to make racing more interesting. .
“They are different, they are heavier and all the drivers will tell you that a faster or lighter car feels a little better to drive. That’s the way things are and that’s the way racing should be,” he explained.
The #14 also spoke about the lap time he expected to be compared to the strongest in the world: “I don’t know, and nobody knows, you’re only happy when you fight in the first position. We are entering a new era of Formula 1 and all the teams have the same chances, so it’s up to us to build the fastest car.”
“Maybe we can’t do it this first year,” continued the Asturian. “There are a lot of things going on in the team to make sure we’re contenders in the future, and that’s what Alpine wants too, so we’ll work day and night until we get there.”
