New engines for Alonso and Tsunoda
Alpine's Spanish driver, Fernando Alonso, had to change the engine of his A522 after his team detected a problem with the power unit used in Bahrain. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) has also already used a second engine after the technical issues he encountered in FP2.
Already a second engine for two drivers in Jeddah. Alpine suspected a sealing problem in Fernando Alonso’s car engine and did not want to take any risks, so they decided to change it.
After the Bahrain Grand Prix, we identified a suspicion of a sealing problem on the power unit in Fernando’s car. As a precaution, the internal combustion engine was replaced for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and the block used in Bahrain was sent back to Viry for further analysis, the French team stated.
The power unit of the Spanish team has been replaced, but Alpine does not rule out being able to reuse the faulty internal combustion engine (ICE) if they manage to repair it. It should be remembered that teams can only use three ICEs per season before facing a grid penalty, so using up a joker as early as the second round is not optimal…
On Yuki Tsunoda’s side, everything has been changed in the engine of his AT03. The Japanese driver had a problem yesterday during the second practice session, and his power unit was replaced. Tsunoda was the only driver equipped with a Red Bull Powertrains engine to finish in Bahrain, but the power unit developed by the Austrian team seems to have once again shown its lack of reliability. Like Alonso, the Japanese driver has used up one of his allowances for the remaining parts for the season.
