In Bahrain, Alpine seemed to be struggling to keep up with the pace of the teams at the front of the midfield. Ferrari and McLaren had a bit more speed and the French team was battling with Aston Martin and Alpha Tauri. According to general manager Marcin Budkowski, this was mainly due to the heat in Bahrain, in which the blue car of Alpine could not perform well.
"It is clear that we are not very happy with the car in hot conditions. In Bahrain we struggled in FP3, while we were faster in representative conditions in FP2 and qualifying," Budkowski acknowledged in conversation with Motorsport.com.
According to the Alpine top man, the car of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso will perform a lot better in Europe, when the temperatures are lower.
Fixing it for the summer
"We do have some homework to do to understand why we are slower in warmer conditions. We don't expect these problems in Portugal or Imola yet, but it could start to have an influence in the summer months."