Alpine team boss Otmar Szafnauer expects further problems with reliability in the 2022 Formula 1 season and is surprised that more cars did not fail in the first two races of the season – although four drivers were caught in the second race in Jeddah.
Fernando Alonso (Alpine), Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) and Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) retired almost at the same time, Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) couldn’t even start. Even in qualifying, the Japanese hadn’t been able to turn a single flying lap.
For Alonso it was the second engine problem after Bahrain. However, he was still able to finish the race in Sachir. For Szafnauer, the defects are due to the fact that the cars are brand new this year and that the engine manufacturers have been forced to bring possible developments as quickly as possible before the March 1 freeze.
“You have 100 percent new parts in the car, which is rare,” he says. “Usually you take over a decent percentage of the parts. And when you take over parts, they’ve proven themselves in terms of reliability.”
“Besides, everyone knew an engine freeze was coming. So every engine manufacturer made changes, and when you make changes, both to the car and to the engine, then things like this happen, especially when you’re pushing for performance,” Szafnauer said.
It is therefore surprising to him that there weren’t even more problems with defects: “Everyone did a really good job with the reliability,” he praises. “Remember the good old days? Back then eight cars or six cars finished the first race. And with this all new package and engine changes I’m amazed at how good the cars are.”