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Team Principal of the BWT Alpine F1 Team Otmar Szafnauer has remarked that his team’s fourteen-point haul from the São Paulo Grand Prix will go down as one of the high points of the season. Alpine’s successful day at the track has now allowed them to open up a nineteen-point lead over McLaren F1 Team in the battle for fourth in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Constructors’ Standings.

After both Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso collided during Saturday’s Sprint, expectations within the team were understandably low for the Grand Prix, with both drivers starting from towards the back of the grid. However, a combination of the A522’s race pace and strong strategy calls from the Alpine pit-wall propelled both Alonso and Ocon into contention for the points in São Paulo.

On the team’s bounce back from a tough Saturday showing in Brazil, Szafnauer remarked: “If yesterday was a low point in our season, today is certainly up there as a high. Congratulations to the entire team – both factories at Viry and Enstone – everyone trackside, and the drivers for a fantastic Sunday effort where we’ve scored 14 points and, importantly, extended our lead in fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.“

Alpine opted to split the strategies of Alonso and Ocon, with the Spaniard undertaking a three-stop strategy, which saw Alonso undertake three consecutive stints on the Medium tyres before closing out the race with a nineteen-lap stint on the Soft tyres to help the two-time World Champion overtake Sergio Pérez with seven laps remaining to claim fifth-place.

Whereas for Esteban Ocon, Alpine elected to undertake a three-stop strategy for the Frenchman, which saw Ocon complete two stints on the Soft tyre, with a stint in the middle on the Medium compound tyre. Alpine’s decision to close out Ocon’s race on the Soft compound allowed the Alpine driver to make the necessary overtakes to climb his way back into the points-paying positions to secure an eight-place finish.

Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN produced a strong performance over the Såo Paulo Grand Prix weekend courtesy of Valtteri Bottas‘ ninth place. Zhou Guanyu also ran inside the points for the majority of the afternoon at Interlagos, but the late deployment of the safety car hindered Zhou’s performance and prevented him from climbing up the grid for a better finish.

Bottas secured two points for the team, which extended the fight for sixth in the Constructors’ Championship by five points ahead of next week’s finale.

Running a soft/medium/soft strategy Bottas showed impressive pace in the C42 and managed a fastest lap of 1:15.511s during the sixty-second lap of the race. The Finnish driver had a remarkable race result, closing the weekend in ninth position after starting the race from fourteenth on the grid. After a challenging few weeks and a triple header of having to retire the car during the European stint of the season, Bottas was happy with his performance in São Paulo.

“I’m happy about today’s race and we’re happy as a team. Everyone did a really good job – to go from 14th on the grid to ninth at the flag definitely classes as a good result. We could have been even higher, but the Safety Car at the end didn’t really play in our favour: it cancelled the advantage we had on the cars behind us, and it left us exposed.”

Despite the unfortunate time of the safety car, Bottas was happy that the Alfa Romeo team outscored its direct rivals and gained some advantage over Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team ahead of the season finale.

After a remarkable drive from the ninth row of the grid all the way to a fifth-place finish, Fernando Alonso has spoken on what he has described as a “very good race” for the BWT Alpine F1 Team at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

Alonso’s fifth-place finish combined with Esteban Ocon’s eighth-place finish has allowed the Enstone-based team to open up a nineteen-point gap over the McLaren F1 Team in the tightly contested battle for fourth in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Constructors’ Standings.

Starting from seventeenth-place on the grid, Alonso undertook a three-stop strategy which included three consecutive stints on the Medium compound of tyre, allowing the Spaniard to see out the final nineteen laps of the race on the Soft tyres.

Alonso was quick to utilise his new Soft tyres in the closing laps by gaining three places in eight laps, and with just five laps remaining in the race, Alonso would set his sights firmly on Sergio Pérez. The Mexican was able to fend off the Alpine driver into turn one, but with DRS enabled on the Alpine, Alonso would go onto make a routine pass on the run into turn four to claim fifth-place.

Speaking on his performance at the São Paulo Grand Prix, Alonso stated: “It was a very good race for us today here in São Paulo. The car was very competitive and with our race strategy we were out of sync with most of the cars. Then, at the end, during the Safety Car period, I had newer tyres and we pushed as close to the front as we could; I overtook Sergio [Perez] and then I tried to look at Charles [Leclerc] but they were a step too fast for overtaking.“

Oracle Red Bull Racing Team Principal, Christian Horner is extremely disappointed with the way the team are leaving Brazil after the team’s pace and performance dipped considerably at Interlagos.

The São Paulo Grand Prix is amongst the list of favourite races on the Formula One calendar. Rich in historic motorsport moments and overflowing with Ayrton Senna fans, Sao Paulo has never failed to deliver. However, for Horner and the Red Bull team, this season, Brazil bears memories not worth thinking about. The RB18 fell way below the expectations the team had maintained the whole season, encountering poor pace and bad tyre degradation, the best the team could achieve was the sixth and seventh position, a disappointing result.

Horner commented on the issues the team battled with for the entire weekend: “We haven’t often left a Grand Prix weekend this season feeling disappointed. Coming away from Brazil with P6 and P7 is far from the standards we have set for ourselves this season. The main issue for us was our pace.“

With the final race of the season approaching, Horner is eager for the team to resolve the issues with pace and avoid giving away any more performance to the competitive teams, despite Red Bull having bagged both major prizes of the season.

“George drove very well all weekend and the various updates Mercedes have been bringing throughout the year has seen them get quicker and quicker. We need to understand why we gave away performance this weekend and will come out firing on all cylinders in Abu Dhabi.”

After a disappointing weekend in São Paulo, the two Oracle Red Bull Racing drivers caused a stir in the garage after the Brazilian Grand Prix, a race the entire team would rather forget, not just down to Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez falling short of expectations, after only managing to achieve a sixth and seventh position in the race but down to the tension between the two drivers caused after Verstappen was asked to let his team-mate pass.

Verstappen reported to struggling with the pace in his RB18, which was a constant issue for the Dutchman throughout the weekend after Mercedes AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team driver George Russell claimed first in Saturday’s sprint race. During the race, Verstappen lacked grip in the car and struggled to avoid sliding around the track which harmed his opportunities to overtake. The poor tyre degradation didn’t contribute to his success either, resulting in fewer pit stops than originally planned.

“We had no pace again today, similar to yesterday – we were sliding too much and we had bad degradation so it was hard to attack. I didn’t quite understand the five-second penalty for the incident with Lewis, but it didn’t affect the race too much as we already lacked pace.”

The race had barely started when 2021 title rivals Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton made contact at the apex of turn two, causing damage to Verstappen’s front wing in the process. The decision made by the FIA stewards concluded Verstappen was to blame for the incident, although the current Champion disagreed and claimed he “didn’t quite understand the five-second penalty” that was later served during the next pit stop.

Narrowly escaping a retirement from the race wasn’t all that occurred for the Red Bull team, when after team orders were requested to Verstappen tp allow his team-mate through, Verstappen refused his team-mate the sixth position which undoubtedly caused some controversy between the two.

A third and fourth place finish for Scuderia Ferrari at the São Paulo Grand Prix has been credited to a “aggressive strategy” by Team Principal Mattia Binotto, after the Scuderia was able to recover from a number of set backs to take away a substantial points haul from the Autódromo José Carlos Pace.

Ferrari’s race would get off to a disrupted start after Charles Leclerc attempted to overtake Lando Norris around turn six before contact from the McLaren F1 Team driver would send the Monegasque driver into the barriers. Able to avoid any terminal damage to his F1-75, Leclerc was able to continue, but a pit-stop for a new front wing would send the Ferrari driver to the back of the running order.

Carlos Sainz had in turn become the benefactor of Leclerc and Norris’ coming together. Sainz, who had been running behind Leclerc before the incident, would then pass his former McLaren teammate a lap later as they both headed into turn one.

With Sainz running up in the podium places by lap nine, his progress was soon halted as Binotto revealed that a tear-off from a helmet visor had got lodged inside a brake cooling duct on his F1-75, forcing the Spaniard into an early than planned pit-stop.

“Our race immediately got much harder right from the early stages because of Charles’ incident and, in Carlos’ case because a visor tear-off got stuck in a brake cooling duct on his car, which meant he had to make his first pit stop earlier than planned, while the mechanics dealt with the problem.“

After claiming his ninth podium finish of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship at the São Paulo Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz has praised his Scuderia Ferrari team for bringing home “the best possible result’.

Despite his second-place finish in the Sprint, a new engine being taken for his F1-75 would see Sainz start the Grand Prix from the fourth row of the grid in seventh. Sainz would benefit from Charles Leclerc’s misfortune on lap seven, as the Monegasque driver collided with Lando Norris, allowing Sainz to move up into the top four. The Ferrari driver would then move up into the podium places just a lap later, as he would overtake his former team-mate into turn one.

Sainz would undertake a three-stop strategy around the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, and after pitting for the final time onto the Soft compound of tyre, the Spaniard would rejoin the grid in fourth-place with seventeen laps remaining.

The twenty-eight year old would then get to work quickly with his new tyres by overtaking Sergio Pérez on the run into turn four to return to the podium places, and allow the Ferrari driver to claim his first podium finish since the Singapore Grand Prix.

Speaking after the race Sainz stated: “The team fought well for this result. We had a strong weekend and a solid race despite the penalty and some setbacks today, namely the issue with the tear-off that meant I had to pit earlier than planned and we had to rethink our strategy.”

Ralph Boschung will continue his partnership with Campos Racing into the 2023 FIA Formula 2 championship season, and he says he has unfinished business after a tough, injury-affected 2022 campaign.

The Swiss racer has enjoyed some success this year, securing two podium finishes at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari and at Spa-Francorchamps, but he has also missed six rounds due to a neck injury that prevented him from being comfortable and confident behind the wheel.

Heading into the season finale of the 2022 season this weekend in Abu Dhabi, confirmation that Boschung would remain at Campos Racing was made official, and he is eager to impress and make another step forward.

“I am grateful to have the opportunity to continue with Campos Racing in FIA F2 next year,” said Boschung.  “With 2021 being my only full F2 season, this year started so well but with the neck injury my whole season was compromised.

“I have an unfinished business and will want to prove that together with Campos racing we can achieve consistently very good results.”

Ollie Bearman will make the jump up to the FIA Formula 2 championship in 2023 after just a single season in FIA Formula 3, with the British racer remaining with Prema Racing for his graduation.

Bearman had a successful rookie campaign in Formula 3, scoring one victory and eight podium finishes as he challenged for the title, and his success there followed his double winning campaign of 2021 where he won both the Italian and ADAC Formula 4 titles.

The British racer, who is a part of the Ferrari Driver Academy, will still only be seventeen when the 2023 Formula 2 championship gets underway next March in Bahrain, but Bearman is excited for the new challenge ahead of him.

“I’m really excited to continue another year with the PREMA family, this time in F2,” said Bearman. “I’m really happy with how my first season went in F3.

“It was a really nice introduction and I felt like the team coached me throughout the year really well. I will continue to work hard over the winter with the Ferrari Driver Academy, in order to be fully prepared for 2023.

Théo Pourchaire believes he would not have found a way on to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship grid in 2023 even if he had won the FIA Formula 2 championship this year.

The Sauber Junior Team driver, who made his free practice debut with the Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN team at the Circuit of the Americas last month, currently sits second in the championship standings, although Felipe Drugovich has already secured the title.

Alfa Romeo has already confirmed that Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu will remain at the team next year, and Pourchaire will likely step up to the role of test and reserve driver.

The Frenchman says he is okay knowing that he will not be on the Formula 1 grid next year, with his aim now on making the jump in 2024.  He also admits that reaching Formula 1 is currently his only real ambition and he is not looking to drive in anything else right now.

“To be honest, even if I’d won the championship, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be in F1 in 2023,” said Pourchaire to Motorsport.com.  “Because of many things, and that’s the sports nowadays, it’s like this, it’s built like this. So I’m okay with that.

The under pressure Mattia Binotto has called for an enquiry within his Scuderia Ferrari team to understand why Charles Leclerc was put onto intermediate tyres during Friday’s Qualifying session ahead of the São Paulo Grand Prix when everyone else was on the slick tyres.

Leclerc took to a dry track with the intermediate tyres and was well off the pace on his first flying lap before being pulled into the pits to swich to the slicks.  Unfortunately, the Monegasque racer was unable to get a flying lap in on the right tyres as George Russell spun into the gravel trap to cause a red flag, during which the rain did come.

Binotto, the Team Principal at Ferrari, would like to understand why Leclerc was given the intermediate tyres on a dry track whilst his rivals were on the right tyre, although he does understand that with variable weather conditions, it was always going to be a bit of a lottery to see who went the right way with strategy.

“Obviously, when you’ve got such weather conditions, it’s always a lottery,” said Binotto to Motorsport.com. “I think the fact that Kevin [Magnussen] was on the pole, with [Lewis] Hamilton eighth on the grid and [Sergio] Perez ninth, it’s a lottery, no?

“But we made it wrong, because certainly we are the only one on intermediates at the time, and not on slicks.

The cooler conditions and the use of the safety car during Sunday’s São Paulo Grand Prix influenced the way Pirelli’s tyres were used, according to Mario Isola.

The soft tyre was the favoured tyre for many during the race at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, with some drivers able to put more than twenty-five laps into them before needing to make a pit stop. The medium tyre also became a better tyre towards the end of the race.

Isola, Pirelli’s Motorsport Director, was interested to see how the set-up of each car influenced the performance and degradation of the soft and medium compounds, and how track evolution played a part later in the day.

“A truly emotional race,” said Isola.  “It’s wonderful to see how Interlagos always puts on a unique show for the fans.

“As expected, it was the variables that made the difference today, with accidents, two safety cars, and temperatures dropping by more than 10 degrees – which compelled drivers to adapt their driving styles according to the compounds they were using, mixing up the cards for every strategy.

Andreas Seidl admitted it was a disappointing result for the McLaren F1 Team in Sunday’s São Paulo Grand Prix on many levels as neither Lando Norris nor Daniel Ricciardo saw the chequered flag.

Ricciardo was eliminated in a first lap clash with Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen that has earned the Australian a grid penalty for his final race with the team next weekend in Abu Dhabi.  Norris survived an early tangle with Charles Leclerc and a penalty for causing the incident but was forced out late in the day with a potential power unit problem.

With the BWT Alpine F1 Team scoring points with both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, McLaren now sit nineteen points behind their rivals in the battle for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

Seidl, the Team Principal at McLaren, said a double retirement was far from ideal for the team, particularly with their main rivals in the championship scoring big points, and it leaves them with a lot of work to do next weekend in Abu Dhabi.

“That’s not what we had in mind when coming to the track this morning,” said Seidl.  “We have to acknowledge that we didn’t manage to put it together today as a team.

The third season of Extreme E will once again be five races long, containing a blend of old stops and new locations.

Like in 2021 and 2022, the year will begin in Saudi Arabia with the Desert X Prix on 11/12 March. A specific city was not mentioned, though it will likely return to NEOM due to the megacity’s increasing relationship with the series that includes sponsoring the Island X Prix doubleheader in Sardinia and its ENOWA energy arm being an official XE partner.

The long awaited round in Scotland will be the second race on 13/14 May. Foundations for the round were set in 2021 when Extreme E agreed with the British government and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar to host a race in the Outer Hebrides by 2022, and it was listed as a backup site if the Ocean X Prix in Senegal did not take place. While the Senegal round was indeed called off, it was instead replaced by the Sardinia doubleheader.

Sardinia, this time as just a single round, is once again the midsummer race on 8/9 July.

After a two-month wait, the season resumes in the Americas with Extreme E’s inaugural trip to either Brazil or the United States. Considering the series’ mission of environmental awareness, it perhaps makes sense for Brazil to be in the cards due to the Amazon Rainforest, while the United States has a major off-road scene. Santárem, Brazil was initially set to host a race in 2021 before it and Argentina were cancelled due to COVID-19.

Lando Norris believed that his contact with Charles Leclerc early on during Sunday’s São Paulo Grand Prix was a racing incident, although the stewards did not see it that way and handed him a five-second time penalty.

The McLaren F1 Team driver collided with the Scuderia Ferrari driver at turn six on the first lap after the early safety car, with Leclerc spinning into the barriers as a result. Stewards felt Norris was primarily responsible for the clash and handed him a time penalty for the incident.

“My start today was good, but it was a disappointing Sunday for us,” said Norris.  “Regarding the contact with Charles, I thought it was a racing incident.

“Of course, I didn’t want contact, and I held my line as much as possible. Maybe I could have given him 5cm more and he could have given me 5cm more but it’s just a shame what happened.”

Norris believed the car was not as strong as he was hoping for it to be after the incident with Leclerc, with the Briton feeling he had taken some damage from the contact.