Pat Fry: We will try to build on the success

Alpine F1 technical director Pat Fry is optimistic about the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix…

Q: What are the main features of the legendary Imola?
Pat Fry: It’s a classic Formula 1 circuit, I’ve been coming to Imola for 30 years now and have seen many different Formula 1 cars in that time! It will be interesting to see how the 2022 cars perform. Hope it will be a fantastic weekend.

At Imola, slow chicanes alternate with medium-speed corners – I wonder how the 2022 car will handle this configuration, which is different from the first three Grands Prix. This is the first European race after the exits, we will try to build on the success of the first races.

Q: Are you happy with how the team has started the 2022 season?
Pat Fry: We can be satisfied with the first three Grands Prix. During qualifying we performed well – both cars were consistently able to reach the final and if all went well in Melbourne we could occupy the second row of the grid.

We need to improve the race pace – we are working on it. There is always a need for an optimal balance between qualifying and race pace, we will continue to look for it to feel comfortable with low and high fuel levels in the tanks.

Overall we are doing well, but there is always room for improvement. We have laid a solid foundation from which to move forward. Now the main thing is to fix minor reliability issues to focus on upgrading the car.

Q: What updates will the team bring to Imola?
Pat Fry: Like everyone else, we try to refine the car as quickly as possible. We are working to keep her weight as low as possible. Despite waiting for the weekend with Saturday’s sprint, we will bring and test a new configuration from the bottom. Let’s see how it behaves in a single Friday workout. It’s a step in the right direction, it’ll be interesting to see how the new bottom performs on the track.

Ask Ahead of the first weekend with the Saturday sprint. How will this change the team’s approach to the race weekend?
Pat Fry: Let’s see how the first sprint of this season goes. Perhaps he will recover if qualifying fails on Friday.

We only have one hour of qualifying training on Friday – it may not be enough to test new solutions and find settings. But we are sure that in our case data correlation works. Our goal is to put the most valuable new items on the car as quickly as possible.