Fernando Alonso’s Alpine, at the Paul Ricard circuit. /
World Cup 2022
Paul Ricard’s nondescript circuit measures the strength of a team that generates many doubts and is on the wire
Fernando Alonso said at the Austrian GP that Alpine’s failures, either from the wall or mechanical, had cost him between 50 and 60 points this year. This reality has been read as a criticism by some team leaders, but it has not been digested equally by all. While some have bowed their heads after receiving the scolding, aware that it is a palpable reality, others have revolted. The latter, a middling chief manager and newcomer to the team who feels empowered to raise his tone of voice.
Otmar Szafnauer arrived at the beginning of this 2022 with the label of being a tough and effective boss. The Romanian-American left Aston Martin to join Alpine and thus put an end to a useless bicephaly that had failed to maximize the resources that Renault, under the command of enthusiastic Luca de Meo, had put into reviving the old glories of the French brand. Few prouder than the Gauls with their history, and there were reasons for it, but after years of wandering, they needed a blow of authority. Szafnauer had faced everything and everyone when Racing Point (today Aston Martin) was accused of being a pink Mercedes, even threatening the FIA itself with a fright from the team that would deprive the grid of reaching its 20 participants per race. . The ordago went well for him, Racing Point completed that season and although today it is a giant that finds it difficult to move under the acronym of Aston Martin, he showed that he does not lack character.
That genius has collided head-on with a reality: Fernando Alonso is an old clock that continues to work with a winding mechanism like the first day. Szafnauer does not like that the Asturian affects (although not with the same acid tone as in the years of McLaren Honda or before at Ferrari, far from it) the obvious and visible failures of Alpine. The head of the French team avoids at all costs praising the performances of the Spaniard, or if he does, he places them in comparison to those of an Esteban Ocon who continues to be the de facto leader of the team and not only because he is French: the results, of moment, they play in your favor. Although in 2021 he gave in with Alonso, he achieved a victory in Hungary (with a leading and essential role for the Spanish) and that still weighs heavily.
Szafnauer has made headlines in the weeks since leaving the Red Bull Ring to landing at Paul Ricard for his insistence on putting Oscar Piastri in a position of prominence over Alonso for 2023. Although the Australian seemed to have found accommodation in Williams, prior change of Renault engines instead of Mercedes, now things are not so clear. Alonso and Alpine have been summoned after the summer to talk about a continuity that seems doomed to be signed, since neither one nor the other have anything better (or do they?) for the next campaign. For this reason, the last two appointments before the holidays are key: the first, moreover, on French soil.
Skipping curves is not penalized
At a time when the disappearance of historic circuits such as Spa-Francorchamps is being considered, fans have to swallow the bitter pill of the French GP at Paul Ricard with a little sugar. A track that, if it had gravel or sand loopholes, would be one of the most spectacular of the year and goes through a nondescript circuit in which skipping corners does not penalize absolutely anything because the need to punish whoever does so is not assumed. The penalties for skipping the limits of the track will be a constant this weekend from Friday.
Alpine’s biggest dome will be on the circuit, how could it be otherwise. Like getting married in Covadonga for a good Asturian or Asturian, visiting Paul Ricard is a must for all the leaders of the Renault parent company. Some will do so reluctantly, because not much entertainment is expected, but it will be a golden opportunity to see up close one of the branches of the company that is taking the most assets. Just in case this is the last time they get a chance to see him up close before he heads downhill to the hells he visited not so long ago.
