Alpine defends reliability record after Fernando Alonso attacks

Alpine

Alpine defends reliability record after Alonso attacks

Alonso has retired from five races with reliability issues this year

Sam Hall

Thursday 24 November 2022 15:49

Otmar Szafnauer has countered Fernando Alonso's criticism of Alpine's dreadful reliability record in F1 this season.

Alonso failed to reach the chequered flag at five races ahead of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, leading to attacks from the two-time champion in Singapore and Mexico with claims that he lost 66 points across the campaign.

The Spaniard's season was capped off with a final retirement at Yas Marina, leaving Alonso looking ahead to his Aston Martin switch.

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Team principal Szafnauer has been clear that Renault elected to forego reliability this year in pursuit of performance with its 2023 power unit, taking advantage of the rules that allow developments with regard to the former.

Responding to Alonso's frustrations, Szafnauer said: "Some of the conditions that produced some of the failures would be very difficult to replicate on the dyno and when we did have those failures, we quickly got on top of them and corrected them.

"One of the failures was minor, an assembly error on the part of a mechanic putting the engine together. That kind of stuff is impossible to replicate when you're doing dyno work.

"However, you learn from them and you put the process in place so this can't happen again. It's exactly what we've been doing this year."

Despite his belief that Renault made the correct decision in its development route and the fact Alpine has all but sealed fourth in the constructors' standings, Szafnauer was forced to concede some things could have been done differently.

"Hindsight's a wonderful thing and had we known that some of these failures were to creep in, we would have had a different, more robust design," he reflected.

"But the process of signing off the engines was correct. We did all the dyno testing and long-running that you would expect for a new powertrain design."