Alonso: Alpine should start next year's car soon enough

Alpine have done a decent job with their car for this season under the new regulations, as the pink and blue car has shown flashes of pace depending on the circuit, but their reliability has been far from ideal especially with Fernando Alonso who finds himself tenth in the Drivers' Standings.

Asked if Alpine can develop their car this season in the manner Mercedes have, as they now seem to have closed the gap to leaders despite their woeful start to the season, Alonso said: "I don't think it's going to be that easy for us.

"They [Mercedes] have a huge organisation and we knew that they will come back sooner or later," he added.

"For us, it's more a medium/long-term programme when we try to improve as much as they did," the Spaniard revealed. "So I think, for us, it's a matter of starting next year's car soon enough that we don't compromise the next project.

"The big teams, they can start next year's car and at the same time, in parallel, keep improving this year's car. For other teams, this is more of a challenge," he pointed out.

Alonso went on to highlight the areas where the Alpine is struggling revealing: "I think we feel a little bit down on some corners. I will say slow speed corners is not our strength at the moment.

"We saw in Baku, with a lot of slow speed corners, some cars were very strong. AlphaTauri finished P5, and Aston Martin was very strong as well. So at some tracks those kinds of teams could come alive again.

"[We need] a little bit of everything. I don't think that we have a weak point in the car that we need to solve, but there are areas to improve everywhere," the 2005 and 2006 F1 Champion maintained.

With the 2022 season reaching it halfway point, Alpine are fifth in the Constructors' Championship tied on 81 points with McLaren who are classified fourth.

Their best results were two fifth place finishes at the British Grand Prix and the Austrian Grand Prix, the first courtesy of Alonso, the second scored by Esteban Ocon.