02/09/2022
NEWS STORY
BWT Alpine F1 Team started its preparations for this weekend's Dutch Grand Prix with Friday Practice at Zandvoort today as both Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon ran inside the top ten on the timesheets.
With further upgrades added to the A522 as per the team's continuous development plan, Fernando finished Free Practice 1 in eighth and Free Practice 2 in seventh with Esteban ninth across both sessions.
Esteban Ocon: "It's good to be back in Zandvoort at a track I enjoy driving at with its unique undulation and layout. Our Friday ended with both cars in the top ten in both practice sessions and that's a decent start to our weekend. Tonight we'll need to look at and try to find the areas where we can improve. We'll also approach tomorrow with good understanding on how the tyres are behaving, especially since we have tested the hardest compound today and it's not something we usually do on Fridays. There's plenty of work to do with the team to be ready for an all-important qualifying session tomorrow."
Fernando Alonso: "It was a decent Friday for us. It is a very different circuit to what we experienced last weekend in Spa. It's a fun place to drive Formula 1 cars around, it's like a rollercoaster with all of the bumps. The car feels good so far and I think we've seen a lot of track evolution today as it was quite dusty across the circuit this morning. We're going to evaluate everything now, but we are pleased with our progress so far."
Matt Harman, Technical Director: "Today was a trouble-free day of practice and we completed everything we intended to do with both cars. We've brought a couple of small upgrades here, which performed in line with our pre-race simulations, and that's brought a bit of extra performance. It's fantastic that we continue to bring upgrades to every race and there's more to come at the next couple of races as well. We're looking forward to the rest of the weekend in Zandvoort - there have been no surprises so far - and we're happy with our work. This weekend, we aim to continue our momentum in the Constructors' Championship relative to our main on-track rivals."
Check out our Friday gallery from Zandvoort here.