Davide Brivio says it was a positive opening day of practice for the Portuguese Grand Prix for the Alpine F1 Team, but the Racing Director of the Enstone-based team remains cautious about the potential of the team across the rest of the weekend.
Brivio watched on as Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon finished an impressive fifth and sixth fastest in the afternoon session at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, but he knows work is still to be done if they want to be genuine top six contenders on Saturday and Sunday. The two drivers had finished fourteenth and tenth respectively in the morning session, highlighting how close the field are in 2021.
The team will not be looking too much into the times set by the drivers on Friday, with Brivio insisting they will be analysing the data and working out the best way to find time and performance ahead of Saturday’s running.
“I think it was a good day for the team today,” said Brivio. “It is just Friday, though, and we won’t be looking too much into the timesheets.
“We were able to test a few things on each car in the morning, and then we completed our usual long runs in the second session on each tyre to collect data and information for the race.
“The drivers did a good job; it’s Fernando’s first time here in a Formula 1 car, so he was getting used to the track a little bit and Esteban ran very consistently in both sessions. It’s a positive start to the weekend, we’ll keep working hard and see how the next two days unfold.”
