Alan Permane: We are working on some serious new products

Alan Permane, Alpine F1 Chief Race Engineer, is concerned the team cannot help Fernando Alonso in Australia give the result he was capable of, but he is confident they will have a chance to come back at the next round in Imola.

Alan Permain: “Had the safety car not gone off the track at the most inopportune moment, I assume Fernando would have finished roughly where the McLaren drivers finished the race. Either in front of them or right behind them. And it would be quite a worthy result if you start from 10th position.

But I think our car in Imola will be able to reach the same high speeds as in Melbourne. We are working on serious innovations, especially a modernized bottom, although we may have time to make it for just one car.

We originally planned to present it in Miami, but we will be able to complete the work sooner, before Imola, so we are very confident.

However, our results are influenced to some extent by the specificities of a particular route. In Bahrain we had some problems, but in Australia we were happy with the car’s handling. Let’s see what awaits us at Imola, but I don’t think this Italian track is very different in character. There are also fast corners and quick changes of direction, and all that. So now let’s prepare for the next race.”

When asked how you can judge the work of 40-year-old Fernando Alonso, Permain laughed and said: “He performs at the highest level, I have no doubt about that. I don’t see much difference from how he performed 15-16 years ago. Admittedly, when he won the Australian Grand Prix in 2006, I was Giancarlo Fisichella’s race engineer, and you can say Fernando was our rival.

But no matter how well we performed this or that weekend, we couldn’t beat him. So I’ve known for a long time how good he is. And when I became the chief engineer of the Renault team, I already worked with him, so I understand very well that he is an extra class racer.”