Alpine confident sidepod blowout a "one-off"

Esteban Ocon's Alpine with destroyed sidepod in Bahrain practice — Photo: © LAT Images

Bahrain Grand Prix

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Alpine confident sidepod blowout a "one-off"

Ocon caused a red flag in FP1 in Bahrain

Sam Hall

Friday 18 March 2022 16:20

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Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer is confident the sidepod blowout on Esteban Ocon's car was a "one-off" as the team continues to search for "the root cause".

Ocon caused a red flag early in first practice of the latest F1 season after a new sidepod element failed and exposed the inner workings of his A522.

"I think it was a one-off," said Szafnauer. "We're still trying to figure out the root cause and I don't know if it was a bit damaged, the pod, or it didn't have all of its fixings.

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"But Fernando [Alonso] ran the same one because it was an upgraded sidepod and once that happened to Esteban, Fernando wasn't out yet so we made sure it was all fixed, it was all taped properly and it was fine.

"So we think it was a one-off but it's still nice to always find the root cause and once you know that, you're 100 per cent sure it's fixed."

Alpine failure 'wouldn't have been noticed' in testing

The sidepod element being run by Ocon at the time of the failure was a new part for the weekend as Alpine continues its 2022 development.

With spare parts at a premium, Szafnauer confirmed: "We reverted back to the old spec but on Fernando's car it was still the new one.

"People will be bringing developments all the time and I learned a long time ago in this game that unless you run stuff in testing, if you put it on for the first time in a situation like this, things can go wrong.

"It could have gone wrong in testing, no-one would have noticed, but when you're adding performance at the race track without testing then some of these things can slip through the net."