The Alpine F1 Team suffered a highly-disappointing Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, as the team saw their points run come to an end after Esteban Ocon finished fourteenth and Fernando Alonso retired.
It was a race to forget for Alpine, with Alonso retiring very early-on in the race following a collision with Mick Schumacher. The collision saw Alonso pick-up heavy damage to his right side-pod, leaving the team no choice but to retire him from the race.
Ocon actually crossed the line in eleventh-place, but was demoted to fourteenth after being awarded a five-second time penalty for an unsafe release. The Frenchman’s pit-crew released him straight into Lewis Hamilton, in what could’ve been a nasty pit-lane crash.
Alpine CEO, Laurent Rossi, was extremely disappointed with the result, Rossi went as far as saying “We must make sure this does not happen again”.
“Plain and simple, this weekend was a disappointing one for the team and it’s the first race of the season where we leave without scoring points. We must make sure this does not happen again this year as we have much stronger potential than that. As a team there are many areas we must improve, and we must also eradicate errors quickly if we are to achieve our ambitious goals.
“While we feel frustrated by today’s result, we will count on it as additional motivation to not have this feeling again during the year. I’m confident in the team to keep working hard and we absolutely must bounce back next time in Miami.”