Alpine haven’t gotten off to the start they wanted in the 2021 season. The French team struggled in the first two races of the year and have only managed to score three points so far. Executive director, Marcin Budkowski, has revealed that they were well aware of their performance in pre-season testing itself.

The opening race of the season didn’t go the team’s way. While as Fernando Alonso had to retire from the season-opener race in Bahrain due to brake issues, his French teammate, Esteban Ocon came 13th. So, the team went empty-handed that weekend.

Alpine will be looking to make improvements on the car so that Alonso and Ocon can extract the most performance and take the team to the top of the grid in the coming races.

Alpine director could foresee the team’s performance in testing

As quoted by Marçà, Budkowski said, “When we got to the preseason tests, we knew we were experiencing ‘headwinds’ during the winter with the change in regulation, but we also found some issues in the wind tunnel that slowed us down in terms of development.” (Translated via Google Translate)

“We knew we wouldn’t have the best winter possible. Therefore, we did not expect miracles. We expected to be on the defensive in terms of pace and the tests confirmed it,” he explained.

Ocon looks forward to teammate battles with Alonso

This past weekend at Imola witnessed quite a thrilling race, with the drivers constantly fighting each other to move up the ladder. The battle between the two Alpine drivers was a rollercoaster; Ocon came ninth ahead of his Spanish teammate, Alonso. Consequently, Ocon has stated he looks forward to their upcoming fights on the track.

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Speaking after the Emila GP, Ocon said, “We had good fights together with Fernando – it was good fun. I feel like there was potentially more on the table today; the pace was good inside the Top 10.

“We could probably have done P7, P8, get in that group, but you know that’s how it is today. We get the reward with one point and will get more with the next one,” Ocon concluded.

The French outfit would look towards the upcoming race at Portugal for the third round of the season. Alonso and Ocon will aim to score some more points for their team. What did you think of Alpine’s performance at Imola? Let us know in the comments below.

Read More: ‘A Little Bit Odd’ – Fernando Alonso on Being Alpine F1’s “Godfather”