"We're maybe ten horsepower away from the best" - Otmar Szafnauer says Alpine 'somewhere in the middle' of F1 grid in terms of performance

Alpine has made a strong start to the 2022 F1 season. The team was, on average, the fifth fastest car on the grid last season. This time around, however, the car finds itself in a better place in the pecking order. It's challenging to be the best of the rest on the grid, although it is still not a match for the teams at the front.

Having said that, Otmar Szafnauer, the Alpine team boss, is happy with where the team finds itself right now. According to Szafnauer, Alpine does not face a deficit of more than 10 horsepower from the best and the car does not seem to have any glaring weakness as was shown by the performance at Albert Park. He said:

“This circuit has characteristics that other circuits also have so we’ll be quick at other places. Our car is strong in some areas and it doesn’t have any weak points, but it’s not as strong as others. We think that we’ve made a step with the power unit and that maybe we are ten horsepower away from the best. We’re somewhere in the middle. So I think Viry did an excellent job. And it’s now up to us to further develop the car.”

Claiming that Imola will be the first GP where the teams will start bringing extensive upgrades to their cars, Szafnauer said:

“It wouldn’t surprise me if everyone brings an upgrade to Imola. In the 25 years that I’ve been doing it, it seems like the first European races are where everyone plans their upgrade. It used to be Barcelona, now it’s Imola. But it’s also the fourth race. Around the fourth, fifth race everyone brings upgrades - so do we. I think it will be a good track for us.”

Meanwhile, Alpine has also announced that the team will be bringing a set of upgrades to the Emilia Romagna GP set for next weekend.

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Alpine not worried by Fernando Alonso's power unit situation

Fernando Alonso was on the third of his allocated number of engines in the Australian GP. The Spanish driver earlier faced power unit issues in Saudi Arabia that led to a DNF.

Otmar Szafnauer, however, was not too worried about the situation with the power units. He revealed that only the power unit from Saudi Arabia was no longer functional while the Bahrain one was back in the pool. He said:

“Don’t worry, it won’t be 23 in 23 races! One of the three [from Bahrain] is back in the pool. It was just a precautionary measure to test a few things on the dyno and the test was ok. So this engine will be used again. Unfortunately, the other one will not. When the water pump [in Jeddah] broke the ICE overheated, so the engine is lost. But we’ll make it.”

Alpine now sets its sights on another improved performance at the GP in Imola scheduled for the weekend of April 22 to 24.