“Exactly the same,” Alpine boss makes bold Aston Martin-Force India comparison following Fernando Alonso’s Bahrain masterclass
Otmar Szafnauer believes that Aston Martin's Bahrain GP performance has got a lot of similarities to Force India's 2014 Bahrain outing.
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Otmar Szafnauer (Credits: F1)
Otmar Szafnauer, the Alpine Team Principal, has compared the brilliant performance of Aston Martin in Bahrain to Force India’s in 2014. The Aston Martin duo of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll finished the Bahrain GP in P3 and P6. The team as a whole impressed many people up and down the F1 paddock.
Otmar Szafnauer was at the helm of Force India in 2014 and, thus, sees similarities between Aston Martin’s 2023 Bahrain outing and Force India’s in 2014. in the 2014 Bahrain GP, Sergio Perez scored a P3, and teammate Nico Hulkenberg managed P5. Szafnauer has been left impressed with what Aston Martin has done and said, “They made the jump. I mean, to be fair to them, it’s always been a good and efficient team.“
“Congratulations to them but I think Force India in 2014 were exactly the same: in about the same relative position, podium winning. I think [Perez] qualified fifth in 2014 and had really good race pace. I congratulate them for making the big step up from last year.”
The Alpine team boss has not shied away from applauding the Silverstone-based team for the superb job that they have done with their car. He has wholeheartedly accepted that Dan Fallows and Co. have made significant improvements on the AMR23 compared to the lackluster car the team had last year.
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Otmar Szafnauer feels Alpine has to show improvement every year
The Alpine F1 Team is currently on a 100-race program, by the end of which they want to be competing for the Championship. Keeping this in view, Szafnauer has admitted that his team has to improve year after year. Alpine had a mixed outing in Bahrain, Pierre Gasly made his way up from P20 to finish P9, whereas Esteban Ocon had an evening to forget for various reasons.
While Alpine has started the 2023 F1 campaign on the back foot, Szafnauer still believes that his team can retain P4 in the Constructors Championship. “I think so, we still have to do that,” he said. “I can’t remember where we were last year for the first race, but probably in a similar position. I think, last year, Alfa [Romeo] beat us here. Maybe even Haas beat us. Aston didn’t, McLaren was close to us. So, although there are different competitors, we have to do what we did last year, and finish fourth and get closer to the top three.“
“This race was not a normal race for us, we usually don’t make these operational mistakes. If we did have a normal race from ninth, I think Lance was just ahead of us. And the question to me is if we had a normal race, could we have beaten them?”
Looking at Szafnauer’s comments, it seems he ardently believes that Alpine can challenge Aston Martin during the current campaign. Moreover, to back his claim, he has talked about Esteban Ocon’s P9 start. In his opinion, if everything had gone according to plan for the Frenchman, he would have ended the race just behind Lance Stroll.
The 2023 F1 season has just begun, and there are still a total of 22 Grand Prix events left. Otmar is considering the progress that Alpine showed race after race last year. If this proves to be the case this year as well, would the French team be able to challenge the likes of Mercedes and Aston Martin for P4 in the Constructors Championship?
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)