As rain came down over Circuit Gilles Villeneuve during Saturday’s qualifying session, teams scrambled to find the right time to switch from Intermediate to Full Wet tires. As things settled down, Alpine’s Fernando Alonso triumphantly qualified P2 on the first line of the grid, right next to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
When all red lights turned green on Sunday, the Alpine driver managed to stay behind the reigning world champion for multiple laps. However, on lap 20, he encountered a power unit issue that cost him any chance of fighting for a podium.
According to team principal Otmar Szafnauer, that’s exactly what would have happened had Alonso’s power unit not been compromised by an air leak, which in turn hindered his straight-line speed, as reported by Motorsport.
In the end, the Spaniard was dropped to P9 from P7 by the stewards for weaving in front of Valtteri Bottas.
“Good points, but without the safety cars, I think it could have been a little bit better,” stated Szafnauer. “The pace of the car in the wet was good. The pace of the car in the dry, we thought we would be not as fast as the Ferraris and Red Bulls, but about as fast as the Mercedes.”
“And as it turned out, the Mercedes got us because of some circumstance. But in the championship overall, we’re not going to beat them, we have to be realistic, we’re not going to finish third. So, with those that we’re fighting for fourth, I’m really happy, we scored a lot of points.”
As for the air leak, Szafnauer says it was the likely culprit but that they hadn’t yet discovered where it came from.
“That [the leak] manifested itself in some higher temperatures, and then you had to manage, and so we were limited down the straight. Thank God it wasn’t big enough where we stopped.”
With the points they earned in Canada, Alpine are now just 9 points behind fourth-place McLaren in the Constructors Standings.
According to team principal Otmar Szafnauer, that’s exactly what would have happened had Alonso’s power unit not been compromised by an air leak, which in turn hindered his straight-line speed, as reported by Motorsport.
In the end, the Spaniard was dropped to P9 from P7 by the stewards for weaving in front of Valtteri Bottas.
“Good points, but without the safety cars, I think it could have been a little bit better,” stated Szafnauer. “The pace of the car in the wet was good. The pace of the car in the dry, we thought we would be not as fast as the Ferraris and Red Bulls, but about as fast as the Mercedes.”
“And as it turned out, the Mercedes got us because of some circumstance. But in the championship overall, we’re not going to beat them, we have to be realistic, we’re not going to finish third. So, with those that we’re fighting for fourth, I’m really happy, we scored a lot of points.”
As for the air leak, Szafnauer says it was the likely culprit but that they hadn’t yet discovered where it came from.
“That [the leak] manifested itself in some higher temperatures, and then you had to manage, and so we were limited down the straight. Thank God it wasn’t big enough where we stopped.”
With the points they earned in Canada, Alpine are now just 9 points behind fourth-place McLaren in the Constructors Standings.