The 2022 Formula 1 season began with a scare for the Alpine team due to the detachment of one of the side pontoons of Esteban Ocon’s car, although it did not lead to more consequences than a red flag in the first minutes of Free Practice 1 to clean the track .
When the session resumed, Fernando Alonso was the driver who first went out to shoot, after checking that everything was in place in the A522, and for a moment he was among the leaders, although he finally fell to eighth place.
In the second free practice sessions, the Asturian was leading in a few moments, which made many excited, but as the minutes passed, the two-time champion went up to fifth place.
After getting out of the car and analyzing the opening day of this 2022 course, Alonso was positive about the performance of the car, and although he thinks they should fine-tune the configuration, he stated that he was able to understand the optimal operating window of the new Pirelli 18-gauge tires inches.
“I felt good in the car,” said the Spaniard. “We still need to find the best performance in the car, especially in the low and medium speed corners, so we need to adjust the balance.”
“Overall it was a good day for us, understanding the tyres, which were at different temperatures from pre-season testing, so we have to go for it,” explained the Alpine driver.
Despite signing a really good day after having solved the problems that the French team seemed to have in the pre-season tests, Alonso remained cautious: “I have felt the car well, but the conditions here (in Bahrain) are very changeable, with the day and night sessions, and also the wind varies a lot”.
“I think we have to be very careful tomorrow because we may find ourselves with a completely different car again, so we have to be ready for that,” said the two-time world champion.
Fernando Alonso faces his 19th season at the Gran Circo with enthusiasm after the radical technical changes to the single-seaters: “Today we have had some positive surprises, we have been competitive at times in the session, but we are not going to set our expectations too high until that we see where we are with everyone in the same conditions.
“We will see if we can be in the top 10 and in Q3, which is probably the first objective for us,” concluded the Spaniard.
