Alpine’s Otmar Szafnauer: “We’re looking forward to flying the French flag on home soil”

Otmar Szafnauer says everyone within the BWT Alpine F1 Team are looking forward to flying the French flag this weekend as the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season continues with the French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard.

Szafnauer, the Team Principal of the Enstone-based team, says racing in front of home fans makes for a much more enjoyable but humbling experience, and they are all looking to make everyone proud at the track this weekend.

“It’s always exciting when it’s a home Grand Prix, and we’re looking forward to flying the French flag on home soil at Circuit Paul Ricard this weekend,” said Szafnauer.  “Racing at any Grand Prix is special but when it’s in front of a home crowd, it just makes the experience even more enjoyable and humbling.

“It makes all the staff at Alpine very proud to be part of a Formula 1 team and we’re aiming to do everyone proud on track this weekend.”

Szafnauer says it is important for Alpine to execute clean weekends with both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon throughout the remainder of the season if they are to beat the McLaren F1 Team to fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

The two teams are tied on points heading into the second half of the season, but unreliability has affected the team far too often in 2022, and the Team Principal insists everything is being done behind the scenes to overcome the reliability concerns.

“Again, we’ve demonstrated that we’re competitive, even if it was not a perfect weekend,” he said. “We’re working hard on not only short-term fixes but also long-term solutions to prevent the issues we experienced in Austria from coming up again.

“Our most recent performance in Austria last weekend was a good benchmark on the improvements we’ve made this season. We’re tied for fourth on points in the championship and now the next step is to solidify that spot, and that means executing clean weekends with regular points from both cars.

“We have back-to-back Grands Prix coming up and it’s important we come away with strong finishes from both of those to tighten our grip before the summer break and that’s our collective focus point right now.”