Fernando Alonso will run the only example of a new floor which his team has brought for this weekend.
Alpine confirmed it has brought a new design of floor which is “intended to help create more downforce” for this weekend. However it only has a single example of the part which Alonso will use while Esteban Ocon retains the previous design.“There is obviously an updated floor on my car this weekend, and hopefully we will see more performance with this,” said Alonso.
However he is concerned the wet conditions at the track, which have already forced the postponement of today’s Formula 2 practice session, will limit their opportunity to test the part.
“We will go I guess into the weekend somehow blind into this result and we will find out Sunday afternoon if it was a good step or bad step. Hopefully it’s more performance and we can have it in Miami with both cars.”
The Alpine driver came close to producing a surprise result in qualifying at the last race in Australia before suffering a technical problem. However he is encouraged by the speed his car has shown over the opening races.
“It’s going to be an interesting weekend because of the rain. Obviously we were very fast in Australia, we were very competitive in Saudi, so the car is really fast at the moment. It feels really good.
“But I think with this sprint format obviously we have only one free practice to set up the car and to make some decisions and then you go into qualifying and parc ferme and you cannot touch the car anymore.
“Being wet right now, I think that will add a challenge for everyone. So we need to be sharp on our decisions and hopefully have a clean weekend and finish the race.”
Alpine has brought one other update for its A522. This is a revised rear beam wing which “provides better aerodynamic support for the diffuser, which is to help improve performance gain on the car,” it said.
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2022 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix
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