Esteban Ocon had his first proper taste of BWT Alpine F1 Team’s A522 during day two the pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, and he made good use of the track time available to rack up one hundred and twenty-five laps.
The Frenchman, the surprise winner of the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2021, said it was important to get some significant running on track on Thursday, and he admitted he was beginning to get a proper feeling of how the car handles.
Ocon admits there are still areas where Alpine need to improve their car, but that is the reason for pre-season testing, to iron out the issues before the season starts in earnest next month in Bahrain.
“Today was my first proper day in the A522 and it’s certainly a great feeling to be back in a Formula 1 car and doing lots of laps,” said Ocon. “It was good to start to get a feeling for the car on proper tyres in accurate testing conditions.
“The most important target for us today, like yesterday too, was to do lots of running so to do over 100 laps is encouraging. We tested a lot of different things and we’ve given ourselves a couple of ideas to work on.
“We definitely have a direction on the particular areas to improve, which is the main objective at pre-season testing. It’s a positive start and I’m looking forward to discovering more at tomorrow’s test.”
“The new power unit and the chassis ran faultlessly” – Alan Permane
Alan Permane, the Sporting Director at Alpine, said it was another solid day of running with the A522, and it was important to get so many laps in to further understand the new car.
The only issue that Alpine faced on day two was a broken bracket on the floor or the car, which was easily fixable and allowed an almost straightforward day for the team as they learned more about both the car and the new-for-2022 power unit.
“It was another solid day here where we spent the morning doing some set up work and understanding more about the car, learning of course on every run,” said Permane. “In the afternoon, we ran a race simulation which went well.
“The car ran reliably, and we had one small stoppage for a bracket on the floor of the car that had broken which we had to replace. Aside from that the new power unit and the chassis ran faultlessly.
“Tomorrow’s afternoon session will be wet as it will be a Pirelli wet session. Fernando will jump back in tomorrow to continue his work from the first day with Esteban driving the car in wet conditions in the afternoon.”
Esteban Ocon had his first proper taste of the A522 on Thursday – Credit: BWT Alpine F1 Team