10 September 2022

BWT Alpine F1 Team qualified for tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix with Fernando Alonso tenth and Esteban Ocon eleventh at Monza. With a number of penalties across the field for engine changes, tomorrow’s grid will be shaken up from today’s Qualifying order.

 


Fernando managed to return to Q3 in Italy and finished his Qualifying session in tenth position but had his only lap time in Q3 deleted for exceeding track limits. Esteban, who is facing a five-place grid penalty for changing his ICE, was unable to follow Fernando into Q3 and missed out by 0.068secs.

 


Esteban Ocon, P11, 1:22.166: “It wasn’t a perfect qualifying session for us today. In the end we just missed out on Q3, after a sub-optimal Q2. We lost the rear of the car a couple of times and any small mistake at Monza costs time. The various engine penalties have really shaken up the grid for tomorrow, so let’s see what happens. It will be an exciting race tomorrow with potential to get in the top ten and we will be pushing hard to finish the weekend strongly and to score points.”

 

 

Fernando Alonso, P10, 1:22.089: “It’s a little disappointing to finish tenth in Q3 today. My last lap time was also deleted for track limits, which I’m told was good enough for eighth position before the penalties were applied to others. On the whole, we seemed to be lacking a little performance in Qualifying compared to the rest of the weekend. The car has felt good and seems strong on race pace, but we have to be mindful of several fast cars starting behind us. We’ve scored points in ten races in a row, so let’s make it eleven tomorrow.”

 

 

Otmar Szafnauer, Team Principal: “We’ve missed a good opportunity in Qualifying today and so we are a little disappointed in our performance. Esteban will take a new ICE in his power unit and will have a five-place grid penalty, which, in the grand scheme of things and with others doing the same, has worked out quite well as he will start in a competitive position. Fernando has looked strong all weekend and he will be frustrated not to have converted that pace into Qualifying to start higher up on the grid. That said, he will start well inside the top ten and he will have every chance to come away with strong points in the race. Tomorrow is race day and, over the past couple of Grands Prix, we’ve shown that our race car is competitive, so the aim is to return with both cars inside the points.”