Up in smoke is how Fernando Alonso’s final day of testing at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya ended last week, nevertheless the Alpine driver saw the positives of the three days in his homeland.
All-in-all it had been a positive test for Alonso with the Alpine A552 he shared with teammate Esteban Ocon, hence the 40-year-old double-F1 World Champion was not ringing the alarm bells just yet despite the 264 laps covered putting them down the order of mileage covered over the three days.
Add to that only one car is Renault powered, while other manufacturers supply multiple teams which equates to a great deal more data captured collectively.
Yet the power unit package is among the progress that impressed Alonso: “We believe we have made a step forward on the engine, on power, but also on everything. I think the engine has been updated in many different areas, so, let’s see if we can be a little bit competitive on that side.
Alonso: Until we go to Bahrain, we don’t know even what the others did
“And keep… the reliability that we had last year; it was one of the strongest points of the car, finishing all the races and having no issues at all. So yes, you need to combine those two things: the performance and finishing the races.”
With only 12 laps run in his final stint in the car, Alonso is looking forward to the second and final 2022 preseason F1 test in Bahrain to make up for lost time:
Alonso continued: “Until we go to Bahrain, we don’t know even what the others did as well on the engine side and how much progress everyone did this winter. There is new fuel, so we all lost performance with the new fuel, and we all try to recover that. So, let’s see in Bahrain.”
Teammate Ocon lost out on Friday and as a result, had only one day in the cockpit which was Thursday. Alonso got things going for the team last Wednesday.