Alpine reveals exhaust worry that exposes grid penalty risk

Alpine executive director Marcin Budkowski has revealed an exhaust issue that threatens to hand the team grid penalties at the end of the season.

The French manufacturer has recovered from a steady start to the season to climb to fifth in the constructors' standings, helped largely Esteban Ocon's victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Teams are permitted to use eight exhaust systems per driver per season, meaning the early switch of spec could cause issues later in the year.

Explaining the issue to media including GPFans Global, Budkowski said: "We had an issue at the beginning of the year, reliability concerns, which meant that we limited the mileage of our exhausts to avoid failure during the race and a DNF.

"So we have introduced a few exhausts at the beginning of the year to contain that risk. We believe we have solved this issue now with a spec of exhaust we introduced during the season. What we're doing now is really managing the ball.

"We have a number of exhausts per car for the season, we just need to manage it and effectively, as you know you manage them between practice sessions, qualifying, race, by having a bit more resources in your pool, you can use them in the most efficient way, if you want, for the rest of the season.

"Touch wood, we don't expect to take penalties this season, but obviously, as we've used a few more than we would have liked to at the beginning of the season, then we are a bit exposed."

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