Formula 1 Racing

Alpine F1 team making changes “on the fly” amid nightmare Baku Friday

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal, Alpine F1 Team

However, he insisted that the Enstone outfit has no regrets about its decision to bring a significant upgrade for the A523 to a sprint weekend, despite knowing that there would be limited time to hone it.

All teams had just the single FP1 session in which to prepare for Friday afternoon’s qualifying.

Pierre Gasly missed much of the session after a hydraulic leak caused a fire, while his team-mate Esteban Ocon had to stay in the garage after an issue was spotted.

Prior to qualifying, the Alpine mechanics hurriedly fitted a new power unit and gearbox to Gasly’s car after its late return from its parking spot on track.

However, their efforts went unrewarded when Gasly crashed heavily early in Q1, leaving him on the back row of the grid for Sunday’s grand prix.

Ocon, meanwhile, recovered from the setback of limited practice running to qualify 12th, the team having taken some set-up gambles with the limited knowledge that it had.

Szafnauer admitted that the FP1 problems had made its life difficult.

“Unfortunately we had a hydraulic leak, which started a fire on Pierre’s car,” he told Autosport.

“And then, when we brought Esteban in, we also noticed a potential problem on the rear of the gearbox, and elected to investigate it further before we let him go out again.

“And, as it turned out, it was a minor issue on Esteban’s car. But there wasn’t enough time for floor off, investigate, floor back on. By that time, the session was over. We lost half the session on both cars.”

Szafnauer said the lost track time was costly as the team was not able to complete its planned programme of homework with the new floor package across the two cars.

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal, Alpine F1 Team

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“They were both on the backfoot because, when you bring an upgrade, one of the first things you’ve got to do is start doing dialling it in,” he said.

“We had an hour to dial in the upgrade, and it’s not a small upgrade, it’s a new floor.

“And with a new floor you’ve got to do all sorts of different set-up iterations to get it to perform, and we didn’t have a chance to do that, unfortunately.

“And of our own making, we had reliability issues. But once you then don’t have a chance to set the car up properly for the for the new upgrade, you’re always on the backfoot.”

Szafnauer admitted that the team had made its life difficult by bringing a new package to a sprint weekend while knowing that there would…

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