Alpine had a difficult first week of testing in Barcelona, where the work plan was cut short due to a failure in the hydraulic system, which caused a fire in the Renault power unit.
However, the French team calmed down its followers by indicating that in these tests they did not use the DRS and focused on long runs with a lot of fuel, so the times were not representative.
After traveling to Bahrain and carrying out the second week of testing at the site where the course will start next weekend, the Enstone team made an effort to allow their two drivers to set times with less fuel in the tank, something that translates into more speed.
Esteban Ocon finished the second morning of testing at the top of the table, confirming that the Alpine still had pace that he had not brought to light, and Fernando Alonso finished third in the afternoon session of the last day, when the circuit was in better condition .
The sports director of the French team, Alan Permane , spoke after seeing the behavior of the A522 in Sakhir, and said that they left with positive feelings before facing the start of 2022.
“Fernando [Alonso] is still not tremendously happy, he still wants to go faster, he continues to have problems with the car, but of course he is happier than before,” explained the Briton.
“He’s been driving on a heavy fuel load for much of the last day, and you can see the jump in lap times,” he continued. “We put some fresh C3 tires on him at the end of the day and he said, ‘Wow, this car is fast.’
“He was very happy and could feel the performance. He didn’t have fuel for qualifying, but he did it with less, but before we ran with full load, so he was thankful for that,” said Permane.
“Once you start to get used to that level of grip and speed, then you start to find little problems. I wouldn’t say the drivers are excited, and we don’t expect to be on pole, but I think we will be in contention for Q3.” Alpine’s technical director stated.
Although the Bahrain test ended much better than the Barcelona test for the Enstone team, they explained that they did not make any major changes to the design concept as they fully understood what held them back at the start of the season.
“About what I said afterwards, we weren’t stressed. The performance was there, we were happy with it, I don’t know if people believed it or not, but we didn’t panic,” acknowledged the Englishman.
“I think we have shown where we are, and although I don’t know what the order of the grid is, I know we are in the battle. We are not miles apart, as it seemed in Barcelona, we just have to get things in order.” continuous.
“We haven’t changed anything, no particular setup, no new parts, it’s just all coming together,” Permane said.
