Safnauer: I hope we can overtake Mercedes again

Fernando Alonso started in Canada from second position, but was only in 9th place in the final protocol after a penalty for incorrect defensive methods, which left him feeling upset.

After nine rounds of the championship, he has 18 points to his name, while his partner Esteban Ocon has 39, and last weekend the French rider Alpine finished 6th again, repeating his best result this season. During the radio exchange with the team, Alonso made no secret of his resentment, as he was faster than Okon from the start of the weekend.

At least you can’t claim a top five place with the Alpine car, and after the race team leader Otmar Szafnauer was asked how Fernando managed to show such a high result in qualifying, which gave some hope?

“Good question! With our computers, which we have a lot of, we are still trying to analyze everything to understand this,” he replied. “Part of the reason is that Alonso is a great pilot on wet roads, but he showed good pace in practice on Friday, so he wasn’t just fast on Saturday, and the track was already drying up at the end of qualifying and many factors had an impact on the situation.

Too bad that technical problems with the power plant prevented him on Sunday, but luckily they weren’t so serious that they led to retirement.

We understood that on a dry track we would not have enough speed to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull, but we thought we could fight with Mercedes, but they were ahead of us. But we have to be realistic: we are not claiming 3rd place in the Constructors’ Championship, although we are clearly ahead of our closest rivals. I hope we still manage to overtake Mercedes again, because we are only a few tenths apart. In terms of power of the power plant, we are not inferior to them, also in terms of aerodynamic efficiency.”