In just over a week, Alpine has gone from rags to riches, from losing fourth place in the F1 Constructors’ World Championship to regaining it in the close fight that is and will be there until the end of the season with McLaren.
If in Singapore the team based in Enstone had had to give way to rivals due to a double failure on the French cars, in Suzuka the situation was completely reversed thanks to the great fourth place of Esteban Ocon, obtained tooth and nail , after a strong defense against Lewis Hamilton.
We must not forget the seventh place finish of Fernando Alonso, who did not turn into a sixth by only 11 thousandths. All in support of a bad performance by McLaren: only one point scored thanks to the tenth place of Lando Norris, while Daniel Ricciardo did not go beyond the 11th after yet another race as a supporting actor.
Alpine is now fourth with 143 points to McLaren’s 130. Although Marina Bay was a haunted track for the transalpine team on this occasion, the single-seaters had nevertheless shown an excellent race pace. At Suzuka things improved thanks to the reliability, which allowed the A522s to reach the bottom.
Fernando Alonso, Alpine A522
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
The latest innovations introduced, first of all a newly developed fund, helped Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon to do better not only than McLarens, but also to get behind the Mercedes.
Alan Permane, Alpine sporting director, explained that all the advantages shown by the A522s during the last few races, as well as the growth shown during the season, is mainly due to the excellent functioning of the wind tunnel.
“The wind tunnel works very, very well. We are finding a lot of things that work. We had planned an update for Singapore and that worked twice as well as we expected, honestly.”
At Suzuka Alpine he used the same fund introduced in Singapore. This is the fourth type of fund created for the A522s. In Austin, the next round of the World Championship, a fifth version will arrive, albeit less flashy than the current one.
“The version used in Suzuka is the fourth in our fund. In fact in Austin it will be a kind of 4B version, because we have another upgrade. It won’t be as big as the one used in Suzuka,” Permane confirmed.
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