At the Circuit de Catalunya
A return to school as scrutinized as expected. A few hours after presenting its new Formula 1 with great fanfare in Paris, the Alpine team was finally able to test its new toy, the A522, in blue and pink colors, new sponsor BWT requires. Like the other teams, Alpine had been in Barcelona since Wednesday for the first tests of the season. Long-awaited tests, as evidenced by the busy press room, with the entry into force of the new regulations imposed on cars, after being postponed for a season because of the Covid-19.
The first two days of driving were very successful, with 129 laps completed for Fernando Alonso on Wednesday, before Frenchman Esteban Ocon took over on Thursday, to make Alpine one of the teams having driven the most during these first two days. days. Auspicious. “We did 125 laps on Thursday, that’s quite a lot so we’re starting to understand this new car very well. Fernando is continuing with the plan this Friday morning, and I’m getting back in the car this afternoon,” the driver told us early Friday morning in the team’s motorhome.
“Tiny little problem”, big consequence
Except that at the same time, Fernando Alonso stopped at the exit of turn 13 for a loss of pressure. A few seconds later, the Alpine was surrounded by thick white smoke, synonymous with a return to the pits. “We had a very small hydraulic problem today, on a part between the engine and the gearbox. But it takes 7 or 8 hours to repair it, ”explained Pat Fry, the technical director.
And in Formula 1, even more than elsewhere, a very small problem can have big consequences, and such a repair time especially sounded the end of these first tests for the Alpine team. We quickly understood this when we saw Alonso returning to the motorhome with his travel bag all afternoon, before Pat Fry’s confirmation: “It’s so much work to change everything that no, we didn’t could not have. When there is the slightest problem, a lot of parts have to be replaced. With this design of the cars, they are so compact that when there is the slightest hitch, you have to remove a lot of parts to be able to repair”, he confided a few minutes later.
“It’s going in the right direction”
It is therefore impossible to see this new Alpine with the 2022 regulations. Just part of the engine, and part of the chassis, leaving your eyes dragging during the quick passage through the garage to join the pitlane. By having taken care to put away his phone. Disappointing, but not as much as for the team.
“There’s so little track time and there’s so much to test in order to learn… So yes, it’s very frustrating,” admitted Pat Fry.
After Barcelona, there will only be three more test days left, in Bahrain this time, from March 11 to 13, a week before the first Grand Prix of the season, still in Bahrain. But better this kind of misadventure during the tests, than during the opening of the season on March 20. Especially since according to some rumors, Alpine would have put the package on engine power, perhaps to the detriment of reliability. “Everything is ok in terms of power, it represented a colossal amount of work. But it’s not just about power, it’s also about efficiency. There are always things to improve, but it’s going in the right direction, ”reassured the former technical director of McLaren and Ferrari.
Porpoising, a phenomenon as unexpected as it is impressive
Among the other lessons of these first tests of the season, the phenomenon of “porpoising”, with cars bouncing on the track at high speed, a consequence of the new aerodynamic regulations. All the teams had only this strange word on their lips, proof of their surprise on discovering the phenomenon. “It is clear that it is surprising, yes. I had already experienced this in the DTM [championnat allemand de voiture de tourisme]. The whole car hits, it hits really hard and it crushes the ground, so yeah you have to hang on well, ”explained Esteban Ocon.
What provide a little more work to the stables before Bahrain. “You have to understand something with aerodynamics. It’s awesome. The other teams have about 50 aerodynamicists. So you have about 500 people working on finding solutions to the same problems. Do we end up with the same ideas? No, of course. So we must not only think about our solutions but about all those that others can find”, almost laughed Pat Fry.
New aerodynamic regulations which seem to confirm its origin, however, and the desire of Liberty Media, the American owner of F1, to offer more overtaking, and therefore more spectacle: Formula 1 races can more easily follow each other without being disturbed by the air of their rival who precedes them. All the more reason, if necessary, to wait with great impatience to see the lights of the first Grand Prix of the season extinguished, and finally to know the hierarchy of this new area for F1.