Alpine is usually in the front positions in free practice and in Turkey they settled into the top-10 with some ease, the times were out throughout the day. Budkowski, director of the team, explained the seventh and eighth of Alonso and Ocon, respectively, on Friday’s times table: “An interesting day, it’s like a new circuit in terms of asphalt and tires. You have to understand some things before, because it can also rain in the third free practice and qualifying ”. The French engineer applauds the state of the track in Istanbul: “It has improved a lot compared to last year, you just have to look at the lap times, about 30 seconds apart, it’s huge.”
In Sochi, Alonso completed “the best race of the year”, in the words of the Asturian, with an Alpine capable of fighting against the McLaren and Red Bull. But Ocon ended up very unhappy with the performance of his car, and now Budkowski reveals why: “There were some set-up differences in Russia. The direction taken in Esteban’s car (Or with) it was not correct. Based on preferences, on ‘feedback’ (the pilot’s comments based on his feelings) or in the data, but it is a fact that when you see the final ‘set-up’ of the two cars, the one we had in Fernando’s car (Alonso) it makes more sense. “” It’s not something we chose, it turned out that way because of the ‘feedback’, because we did choose, for example, to divide the strategies in search of the best possible result in the event of rain or safety cars, “he added. The driver French finished 14th in Russia, when Alonso was sixth and fought for the podium.
The engineer agrees with Alonso, who recently praised the strength of the competitive French team, with its limitations, on all routes: “We are doing a job of extracting benefits from the car and in terms of consistency. It’s not perfect, but overall we are doing well. “” You have to be prepared so that when things happen, certain race circumstances, we are prepared to take advantage of them. In a normal weekend there are few points to recover, but there are seven grands prizes left, almost a third of the season, “says Marcin.
Alonso: “The objective is Q3”
Alonso, seventh of the day, aspires to the top-10 in qualifying: “You have to adapt quickly to the conditions, Q3 is still the goal, top-10. The circuit is as I remembered in the past, so I’m glad I didn’t come in 2020. There is some rain forecast for Saturday so we’ll be prepared. But it has been a productive Friday. “
