John N
The Alfa Romeo Formula 1 team, which currently ranks sixth in the F1 world constructors’ championship, will try to stay in the thick of the midfield fight when it competes at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix Imola. Valtteri Bottas has earned a sixth and an eighth in his three starts with the team, while rookie Zhou Guanyu has contributed a 1theth place.
In an interview, Team principal Fred Vasseur acknowledged that Alfa Romeo has to keep up in the development race to carry the fight to its rivals over the season.
“I’m pleased with the results of the first three events. I also know that now the development is starting from Imola and Barcelona, so we have to be there right now. We have some updates in the pipe, as everybody does, but they have to work and work as planned. We will have a new part on the floor for Imola. So far, it looks OK.
Alfa’s engine partner Ferrari has shied away from introducing updates in 2022. Team boss Mattia Binotto said the plan was not to bring new parts to Imola because the sprint weekend format meant limited time to try them. However, Vasseur says the Alfa strategy is to introduce updates as soon as possible rather than worry too much about the intricacies of the particular venue and race weekend format.
“If you wait like this, after Imola, it’s Miami, which is quite tricky. Then you have Barcelona, which is okay, but then it’s Monaco, Baku, and Montreal. You have perhaps two different approaches between the teams. Is it easier to bring a big package every four events or introduce one component every single event? We did it like this three years ago because we didn’t develop the car two years ago and last year. And I think it was very successful for us, and we will have the same approach. We will try to bring updates, not every race, but almost. And we’ll have the first one in Imola, another one in Barcelona, and we will try to continue to push and develop as long as we can.”
Vasseur acknowledged that the sprint format made it harder to introduce changes to the car, but he insisted the team could cope, especially since other groups were in the same position. For sure, it’s not easy when it’s at the beginning of the season, and we are still in the process of introducing updates and so on, but I think it’s the same for everybody. It’s in the hands of the team to decide if they want to have an update or not. It’s up to the drivers to be ready to do an excellent job in free practice, and we know that today is different from ten years ago; there are some races with only a short amount of free practice time. But at the end of the day, it’s always the best driver who wins the championship.
In a related development, Alpine’s chief technical officer Pay Fry says the team needs to bring its race pace to the same level as its qualifying form.
“Our qualifying performance is relatively competitive since we’ve had both cars regularly in Q3. We could have been as high as the second row if we got things right in Melbourne. We need to improve our race pace and investigate what can bed done. There’s always the right balance between qualifying and race pace, and we need to continue working on this to get comfortable with the car on low and high fuel. The team will have an upgrade for its A522 chassis at the fourth race of the season this weekend. We’re working through bringing weight-saving items to the car when and where we can. Although it’s a sprint race weekend, we still have a new floor upgrade that we will test, so we’ll see how that fares in the sole Friday practice session. It’s a step in the right direction, and it will be interesting to see how it performs on the track.”
