Fernando Alonso was forced to pull his Alpine car over in Saudi Arabia. The water pump turned out to have caused a problem in the internal combustion engine, making it unsalvageable. Alpine hopes to prevent a recurrence by making the necessary repairs to the component.
The Spaniard was already driving with a new internal combustion engine (ICE) in Jeddah, but has thus been able to immediately discard it. As a precautionary measure, the engine with which Alonso drove in Bahrain was also examined, but was approved for future use.
Alonso faces grid penalty
Alpine does not expect a repeat of the water pump failure, according to team boss Otmar Szafnauer in conversation with Autosport.com. However, given the lost engine in Jeddah, a grid penalty later in the season seems inevitable, as a maximum of three may be used in a season.
It was an easy repair, which Szafnauer says only makes it more frustrating. After all, the relatively small part caused major damage. The team boss says he is already preparing for a possible grid penalty later in the year and wants to time it as favorably as possible.