The Alpine F1 Team announced on Thursday that former Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team Principal and CEO Otmar Szafnauer has been named as the new Team Principal of the Enstone-based outfit.
Tag: Alpine F1 Team
The Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso had a fantastic night under the lights as Formula One hosted their inaugural Grand Prix in Qatar.
The double world champion started the race from third place on the grid as a result of penalties for Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas. The Spaniard showed great pace throughout the race coming home in third place and in doing so secured his first podium finish since the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix.
The podium finish was Alonso’s 98th of his Formula One career and his first with the Alpine F1 Team. Taking to Twitter following the race he said:
It was also a great night for Alonso’s teammate, Esteban Ocon who came from ninth place on the grid to finish the race in fifth place and in doing so gave the Alpine F1 Team a combined total of 25 points and taking to Twitter himself following the race, the Frenchman said:
The Alpine F1 Team have now strengthened their position in fifth place in the Formula One Constructors championship as they hold a 25 point lead over Scuderia Alpha Tauri with just two races remaining in the 2021 Formula One season in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.
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A Great Race For Alonso
The Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso scored his first podium finish since the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix where he came home in second place in Sunday’s inaugural Qatar Grand Prix where he finished in third place.
The Spaniard who started the race from third place commented following the action saying:
“It felt fantastic today and to be back on the podium was so good. We deserved this result as a team and I’ve had to wait seven years since my last one. Hopefully we don’t need to wait this long again! We took some risks with the one-stop strategy but it worked out well. We had some strong pace and despite Perez catching us at the end we did enough to hang on. Esteban did a great job in assisting the result and our pitstops were brilliant, so well done to the whole team. I love this track and the car felt amazing all weekend, so I can’t wait to come back here. There was also quite a lot of action and overtakes, which is something we weren’t sure of at the start of the weekend. In the end, it was a perfect weekend for us and we scored lots of points in the Constructors’ Championship, so now we have a good advantage over Alpha Tauri heading into the final two races.”
Fernando Alonso
Esteban Ocon started the race from ninth and came home in fifth place and speaking following the race the Frenchman said:
“It felt fantastic today and to be back on the podium was so good. We deserved this result as a team and I’ve had to wait seven years since my last one. Hopefully we don’t need to wait this long again! We took some risks with the one-stop strategy but it worked out well. We had some strong pace and despite Perez catching us at the end we did enough to hang on. Esteban did a great job in assisting the result and our pitstops were brilliant, so well done to the whole team. I love this track and the car felt amazing all weekend, so I can’t wait to come back here. There was also quite a lot of action and overtakes, which is something we weren’t sure of at the start of the weekend. In the end, it was a perfect weekend for us and we scored lots of points in the Constructors’ Championship, so now we have a good advantage over Alpha Tauri heading into the final two races.”
Esteban Ocon
Chief Executive of Alpine Laurent Rossi commented saying:
What a fantastic team result. Firstly, a huge congratulations to Fernando on his podium. It marks his first since returning to the team and, I must say, after the season he has had, he truly deserves it. We knew a big opportunity would arise today with the pre-race grid penalties for some cars around us, which propelled us into a great starting position. From there, it was down to him at the wheel to navigate himself into contention, for the team to execute the right strategy by making the calls at the right time and the crew to deliver the perfect pit-stop. All of those elements fell into place and the end result is a deserved one: our second visit to the podium of the season. We must not forget Esteban’s equally brilliant drive to finish fifth today. He also enjoyed a superb start, which put him in a great position to score points. He benefitted from other cars two-stopping but still remained calm with others closing in late on to take a very valuable ten points. With today’s points haul we extend our lead on Alpha Tauri in fifth to 25 points with two rounds remaining. While this is a healthy advantage, we’re not going to get too far ahead of ourselves. We have two races to go and, as we have seen, anything can happen in Formula 1. We aim to build on our consistent performances so far this season – by scoring in 18 of 20 races – in order to cement fifth position by the end of the year
Laurent Rossi
The Alpine F1 Team tweeted:
Alan Permane, conducted a debrief following the race saying:
The result means that the Alpine F1 Team have moved into fifth place in the championship, 25 points ahead of Scuderia Alpha Tauri.
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