In the absence of two races to finish this season of Formula 1 and the link between Fernando Alonso Y Alpinethe two-time world champion has left half measures and cover-ups and has pointed directly to his team for the repeated problems he has suffered throughout the year.
“For car 14 there are always reliability problems. With 20 laps to go I lost a cylinder, so I was running on five cylinders, with 20% less power. I was 20 seconds ahead of the McLarens and my teammate. I think the race was exceptional up to that point”, he pointed out in ‘Race Fans’ after leaving in Mexico.
The Asturian does not believe that it is “bad luck” and points out to Alpine: “It is impressive that only one or two cars retire in each race and May it always be car 14. They broke five engines this year, the problem in Australia in qualifying, in Austria we couldn’t even start the race because there was a blackout. So I think in 19 races, in 50% or so of the races we didn’t get the points we deserved, but there’s nothing we can do now.”
Taking stock, Alonso adds five dropouts in 2022, but you also have to take into account his problem in qualifying in Australia or the failure in the sprint in Austria.
Unlike him, Ocon He has only dropped out twicewhich contrasts sharply with the fateful era of McLaren-Honda in 2015.
“In Honda’s first year we had like a 72-position penalty at the end of the year, so something like that. But what happened in Honda was that both cars stopped. This year only the 14 car is stopped”, he explains.
Therefore, Alonso predicts a tough winter at Enstone: “The engine is not capable of finishing races. It can’t be bad luck when you have to change six or seven motors, as we have done, and we still haven’t finished the races. So I think they have work to do next winter, hopefully not too much.”