BWT Alpine F1 Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer felt that the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix allowed the team to demonstrate their pace and potential to compete near the sharp end of the grid, with both Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso running in the points in Jeddah.
Ocon scored a solid number of points with his sixth place finish, while Alonso saw his strong race cut short by an unknown reliability issue.
“We have mixed feelings from today’s race and, in general, it’s another strong result, which underlines our competitiveness. It’s a great result for Esteban to finish in sixth place. He’s been solid all weekend and it’s good for him to convert a strong qualifying performance into a healthy bag of points.” said Szafnauer.
“We do have a taste of disappointment that we were unable to put both of our cars into the points with Fernando unfortunately retiring from the race after driving very well all evening. We’re investigating the issue to see what exactly has occurred.”
Szafnauer allowed the teammates to race each other for position on Sunday, making for one of the day’s most exciting battles. He was pleased to see both drivers bringing out the best in the car throughout the race.
“It’s clear our car has the potential to fight for big points as demonstrated by both of our drivers tonight. We’re happy to let them race hard and fair as, in the end, having both drivers extracting the absolute maximum from the car is what we’re here to do.”
Szafnauer said the team is now looking to continue their momentum into the Australian Grand Prix after finding success in the season’s first two race weekends.
“Everyone at the team will continue to work hard on our return to Enstone and Viry to best prepare ourselves for Formula 1’s highly anticipated return to Melbourne in two weeks’ time. Well done to everyone at the team, we’ll keep pushing!”
