After finishing the Bahrain GP in ninth position, the French team discovered a problem in the power unit of Fernando Alonso’s car, something that caused the Spaniard to have to use a new engine in the first practices of the Saudi Arabian GP .
In Jeddah, the pace of Alpine and Alonso was really competitive and they were able to fight behind the leading positions, however, the Asturian’s A522 engine knocked him out earlier than expected in what meant the second problem in two careers.
According to the team manager, Laurent Rossi , the problem was located in the water pump and, although the main idea was to replace this part, after carefully analyzing the power unit of the #14, they concluded that it would be impossible repair it.
“We have identified the cause of the problem and I hope that it is corrected for Melbourne. This is a problem that is due to the youth of the elements of the new engine. The advantage is that it is neither structural nor intrinsic. yes, neither its design nor the architectural choices made on the concept, because the engine does what is expected of it.”
“The problem is the water pump, which is integrated into the engine. When it disintegrated, it fell to the bottom of the engine cooling circuit. If we had wanted to repair it, we would have had to break the seal. Therefore, we have lost the engine. Although his physical integrity is not directly affected, for us it is already one less engine,” Rossi concluded in a statement for Autohebdo .
Inevitably, that means that for the next race in Australia, which will take place from April 8 to 10, Alonso will have to mount his third power unit of the season, as long as they have not rescued the one used in Bahrain, thus reaching the limit. of power units allowed for the entire 2022 season in just three races.
If Sakhir’s first engine, which was allegedly changed “as a precaution” , turns out to be inoperable, Alpine will be in very serious trouble, as any new power unit element for Alonso ‘s car would carry a grid penalty from here on out .
Before starting the season and due to the freezing of engines that has come into force this season, Renault completely changed the concept of its engine, putting power before reliability as they recognized internally, a brave and daring decision that could be causing all the problems that currently have the French structure walking on the wire after only two races of the 23 scheduled on the Formula 1 calendar for 2022.
