A hundred Alpine races set up to win. Hundred… what maybe they will have to be more. The old team Fernando Alonso He had a start to the 2023 World Cup in Bahrain in which they appeared on screen a lot, but not exactly for the better. Because Esteban Ocon, ex-partner of a double champion who, like well remember defeated in 2022, gave up after receiving three sanctions against Sakhir.
Because as one fell suddenly the other came. All, moreover, from the same beginning. Because Esteban, at the exit, decided to stand a few inches in front of the drawer and they caught him. Five seconds.
SO, ten more. The reason is that there were other mechanics at Alpine who decided it was a good idea to lean against the car when they cannot in any way touch it while serving their sentence.
They changed the nose, and someone already leaned back in the pink car to enjoy it while they counted the five seconds on their finger. In the FIA they counted them better, and they nailed him to double the penalty.
But another fell on him. Because He exceeded the speed limit in the “pit lane”. And it had already been 20 seconds.
“I’ve been doing this since I was in F1! And they penalize me now?” Ocon told his team on the radio.
Eventually they put it in the garage. He was in the low zone, very low, in the last places of a classification in which Pierre Gasly, his teammate, reached the points on his debut with Alpine despite starting twentieth. And meanwhile, Alonso on the podium.