With two serious reliability issues at the last Austrian Grand Prix, the French team showed they have a lot of work ahead of them, especially on the Asturian driver’s side
One of the phrases most echoed in the Red Bull Ring paddock at the Austrian Grand Prix was spoken by Fernando Alonso before Sunday’s race. “They cost us 50 or 60 points,” he noted, talking about the bleeding caused by the lack of reliability and the major problems he has faced since the start of the season.
It’s hard to pin down a specific number because if you go into detail, it can exceed twenty. With a broad brush you can count ten Alpine failures in eleven Grand Prix, only half the calendar. Alonso has 29 points while his teammate has 52, and both can be sure they could have a lot more if they had a car and a team that lived up to expectations.
Alonso is the one who gets the most hits. Luck hits him hard, despite the fact that he is consistently faster than his partner. In qualifying as well as in the race he more or less consistently drives about two or three tenths better than the Frenchman. However, he has half the points.
If it’s not the engine it’s the strategy, if it’s not the wall or broken parts like the two euro that cost him a possible podium in Australia or the nut that came loose this Sunday and took him from seventh to the tenth dropped. There are many lost points and few are attributable to the Asturian: he does the only thing he can do, which is drive.
Like a dance teacher walking on the floor with a person with two left feet, Alonso can’t keep up if the other party doesn’t respond. There hasn’t been a weekend where everything went well, as even at Silverstone, where the Spaniard had his best result of the season, they didn’t run the qualifying lap in the rain at the best time on track. If only the car was potentially a winner…
That they make a mistake, at least for the Grand Prix, is unacceptable for a driver like Fernando Alonso, whom they fear, admire and respect in equal parts on the grid. You just have to see the fury the Asturian threw at Yuki Tsunoda at 200 km/h when he kicked him off the track to defend his position.
Those stripes and the competitiveness it shows race after race make Alpine want to innovate it. In theory everything has been agreed as they have managed to lock Oscar Piastri on Williams (along with the Renault engines), so the only thing missing is the signature, and that is no small matter. In Formula 1, there is no extension or contract until they are signed in black and white, and today there is nothing. Both Alonso and Alpine have been quoted for after the summer, when they will predictably announce the continuity of their relationship through 2023 (perhaps another year) unless the pilot relapses.
There are not many options. While there may be gaps on the grid, such as one at Mercedes (Lewis Hamilton not sure if he should continue) or another at Aston Martin (Sebastian Vettel is seriously considering hanging his helmet), Alonso knows Alpine is home where it can grow, although it is a house built on sand. Perhaps the next races before the break, in France and Hungary, will give him some perspective on what could be his best destination for what could be one of his last seasons in Formula 1.
Alpine and Alonso need mutual trust. Every relationship is built on it and as the Spaniard reacts, the team is very much portrayed. It is possible that Alonso even decides to swerve and look at other horizons.
There is still half a season to go and the Enstone squad still has room to polish up those edges that are hindering that quality leap they can possibly make. Another problem is patience. Evidence of this is Alonso’s radio message to his team as he entered the finish line of the Red Bull Ring: “Could we be sixth or seventh? Speechless. It’s hard to understand a lot of things this season. We’re going to try to have a better second half,” the pilot asked.
Source: La Verdad
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