Alan Permane says it was a ‘sensible and steady’ Friday for the BWT Alpine F1 Team, with the only real setback being the loose sidepod on Esteban Ocon’s car earlier during first practice.
Fernando Alonso showed a good turn of pace to place inside the top ten in both sessions, the Spaniard ending the evening session fifth fastest, while Ocon ended both sessions with the twelfth quickest time.
Permane, the Sporting Director at Alpine, said the team had identified the cause of the failure of Ocon’s left-side sidepod and are not expecting any more issues with them going forward, and the rest of the weekend will be about helping both drivers find more traction and some additional balance around the low-speed sections of the Bahrain International Circuit.
“It’s been a sensible and steady Practice day for us in Bahrain,” said Permane. “It’s good to be back at a Grand Prix weekend preparing to race and nice to be back in the routine.
“Conditions here are a little different to testing last week. It’s cooler and it seems that the tyres are behaving themselves better. Today, we ran the Softs and Mediums, working through some balance and set-up options in FP1 and then focusing on tyre work in FP2.
“Other than the loose sidepod on Esteban’s car, which we’ve identified and rectified to avoid a repeat, we’ve not had any problems with the cars.
“Of course, we have some work to do such as improving traction and some low-speed balance but, in general, both drivers are happy and are looking forward to taking on the rest of the weekend.”
