The BWT Alpine F1 Team started their preparations for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix with a smooth Friday practice at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, where both home heroes Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon finished in the top ten.
After the rough atmosphere in Miami last time, Formula 1 returned to a more familiar environment in Barcelona, the scene of this season’s pre-season testing and the location where the A522 made its track debut in February. This time, however, temperatures were much warmer than before the season, peaking at over 30C air and 42C orbit.
Times Grand Prix of Spain 2022.
Both drivers ran a productive program to find the best set-up around the 4.6km circuit. Fernando finished the day sixth in Free Practice 2 with a time of 1 minute 20.203 seconds completing 50 laps of the day, with Esteban ninth in a time of 1 minute 20.745 seconds out of 53 laps.
Conditions are expected to remain dry and hot in Barcelona, with Free Practice 3 taking place tomorrow, Saturday, at 12pm local time, before qualifying at 3pm.
Esteban Ocon: “It’s great to be back in Barcelona. It’s nice to feel how different the car is since we first drove here for winter testing. It has definitely moved in the right direction and I feel a significant difference. Today we look like contenders for the top ten, which is always positive on a Friday. However, there is more work to be done, that’s for sure. After both practice sessions today, we know where to focus our efforts to be in a good position tomorrow. All in all it was a solid day for data collection and now tonight is the time to make sure we can be at our best for qualifying tomorrow. †
Fernando Alonso: “It was a reasonable day for us today. After winter testing in February, we had to do some testing because the car has changed so much between then and now. We tried to evaluate a few things and do our normal job of assessing the tyres. We have collected some useful data, but it is clear that we need to improve the car further for tomorrow. The balance isn’t perfect, so there’s more work to do tonight to make sure we’re as prepared as possible for qualifying tomorrow. I loved seeing the stands full and hopefully we can put on a good show tomorrow.”
Pat Fry, Chief Technical Officer: “Today it was a relatively standard and trouble-free Friday practice, where we completed a normal program with a mix of short and long runs. We look pretty competitive at the one-lap pace, as we’ve been recently, but we’ve focused on experiments to improve our pace in the long run and we’ve got enough data to work through this evening. It’s an important focus area for us right now and we’re trying several things to further improve our pace in that area. The upgrades we have brought to this race are relatively small steps, but they all count, they function well and we are happy with that so far this weekend.”