Alpine had a disappointing start to the 2021 F1 season, with most of the points before the summer break coming from the chaotic Hungarian Grand Prix, where Esteban Ocon won for the first time in the category.
After this feat, the French team showed a lack of consistency in their results, with great performances, such as Fernando Alonso’s podium finish at the Qatar GP, combined with disastrous races in which they failed to score points. Despite this, the Enstone structure will be able to finish fifth in the standings, beating AlphaTauri, but far from the best of the rest, McLaren and Ferrari.
Last weekend, Alpine came close to scoring yet another podium finish as Ocon rode for much of the Saudi Arabia race in third position, only to be overtaken by Valtteri Bottas on the same finish straight.
The French driver missed the bottom of the podium by just a few tenths , but said he was happy with how the car performed, something that bodes well for the start of the 2022 season. Next year, with the change in regulations, all teams will have You have to start from scratch and there is a chance that Alpine will hit the nail on the head and build a competitive car.
Ocon believes that his team will be “very dangerous” for his rivals if they get the car design right: “It’s hard to digest how we lost third position in Jeddah, 50 meters before the finish, but that makes our rivals not trust We are happy to have extended the lead over AlphaTauri to fifth place in the constructors’ table.”
“We get a lot out of the car and, as Fernando would say, it’s part of the plan. We’re working as hard as we can, and we’ve achieved a great result, so we’re satisfied and happy in the team. I think it’s been a solid weekend for our part, when we have the same pace as the leading cars, we are going to be very dangerous,” said the Frenchman after scoring 12 points in the last race.
Alpine CEO Marcin Budkowski said the Enstone guys know what they need to control the inconsistency they had earlier in the year, and they applied it at the Qatar and Saudi Arabia events.
“Some races this year, like in Austin, Monaco, where both cars were very far behind, or Mexico, we came out quite disappointed, and those were some races where we had a poor performance, but in Qatar we were third,” he said.
“Everyone has reliability problems, and it is important to know how to control it, because whoever does it and gets the best out of the car will gain a lot in consistency and score points. We are learning for next year, and we have already been able to put it into practice, but we need to improve in this aspect,” he concluded.
