A new floor for Alpine at Imola
The sports director of Alpine, Alan Permane, announced that a new floor will be ready for Imola. The improvement is coming earlier than expected, as it was planned for Miami, but only one car will benefit from it starting from the next race weekend.
The lights are green for Alpine. The French team is following its roadmap without any delays, and even ahead of schedule. Sporting Director Alan Permane has announced that the improvements initially planned for Miami will be available as early as Imola next weekend.
We will have a great improvement in Imola. We have a new floor. I think it will only be for one car for now. It was planned for Miami, but we managed to have it in Imola, so I am very confident, said Alan Permane.
The Briton, however, has not yet announced which car will benefit from the first improvement. For Fernando Alonso, this could be an opportunity to have a slightly more competitive car than his teammate and thus make up for his deficit in points. The Spaniard only has two points while Esteban Ocon already has 20. Alonso has not been helped by his retirement in Jeddah due to a mechanical problem and by his missed strategy in Melbourne which caused him to finish at the back of the pack.
For Ocon, these improvements could be an opportunity to widen the gap with his teammate and climb up in the rankings. The Frenchman, currently seventh, is the first driver outside of the top three teams and is only 5 points behind Max Verstappen. In Bahrain, the former Force India driver had an issue with his new sidepods, with one of them coming loose from his car during practice sessions. He had raced in the Grand Prix with his old parts, which didn’t prevent him from performing well (7th). Alonso, on the other hand, took to the track with the new sidepods, so in order to balance things out, Alpine might be tempted to install this new floor on the Frenchman’s car first.
If the A522 proved to be fast, with Esteban Ocon finishing in sixth place in Jeddah, it is the reliability of the car that raises questions. Mechanical problems are piling up and Fernando Alonso has already used three engines, which is the maximum allowed for the season. In case of another change, the Spaniard will incur a 10-place penalty on the grid. The French team still has work to do to have a fast and reliable car, although the initial results indicate a promising potential.
