New pontoons for Alpine during Free Practice
The French team has modified the pontoons of their single-seaters before this morning's Free Practice, but Esteban Ocon's car experienced a major issue during the first session.
During the first free practice session of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Alpine launched its two cars with improved side pods since the winter tests. Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso took to the track for the first time with this new component, and while the Spaniard had no issues and set the eighth fastest time, the story was different for the Frenchman.
The new pilot's pontoon number 31 suddenly detached in a straight line, causing a red flag.
🚩 RED FLAG 🚩
Esteban Ocon loses a big chunk of sidepod 🤯
The debris litters the start-finish straight, so the session is paused as clean-up begins#BahrainGP#F1pic.twitter.com/ZHWKqIIZzr
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 18, 2022
The French Alpine had to come back to the pit and was unable to return to the track this afternoon for the second session with its new pontoons, reverting back to its old parts. The team director, Otmar Szafnauer, tried to reassure everyone.
« It's an isolated incident. We are still trying to understand the cause of the problem, I don't know if the pontoon was damaged or if it was improperly fixed. But Fernando had the same one and didn't have any issues. We made sure that everything was repaired and it's good now. So I think it's an isolated incident. But it's always better to know the cause of the problem, and once you have identified it, you can be 100% sure that you have resolved the issue.
» Alpine is trying to get a new pontoon for Esteban Ocon's car before Sunday's race, but time is running against the French team.
