The French carmaker’s sporting director saw first-hand the challenges Alpine faced as they “snowballed out of control” over the weekend after Pierre Gasly’s car caught fire on Friday.
In the event the team wanted a trouble-free run to assess the new floor update, it had an engine swap, crash fixes, setup changes, pit exit starts and then a GP that Esteban Ocon narrowly missed on the last dramatic pitlane. Alpine left the race without scoring any points.
All of this drama comes on top of an intense new sprint weekend format that includes qualifying, sprints and a grand prix on Friday and Saturday.
Asked how this weekend compared to previous sprint weekends, Permane said: “I can’t compare this weekend to any other weekend. It’s been so crazy and fraught and difficult to be honest. It doesn’t feel like Any other weekend.”
Alpine’s problems started in the first free practice when Gasly’s hydraulic leak caused an engine fire, cutting his run short. Then he crashed at the start of qualifying.
Team-mate Esteban Ocon’s movement was limited in FP1 due to a gearbox problem, which has further troubled the team in finding the right setup ahead of qualifying.
In the end, Ocon’s car was pulled from the parc ferme on Saturday for a setup change amid fears his boards would wear out.
With all that in mind, Permane said: “You need to start well prepared and then have a good weekend. We didn’t have a single car in FP1. It snowballed out of control from there.”
Permane applauded the hard work of Alpine’s mechanics during the weekend’s dramatic race as they now endure the added complexity of back-to-back rounds.
Alpine A523’s Pierre Gasly pulls over and climbs out of car due to fire on board
“They worked really hard this weekend,” Permane said. “They did a fantastic job with Pierre’s engine change. It’s going to have a knock-on effect that you (the media) don’t see.
“They arrive here on Wednesday and build the cars, but we also build spare parts: spare gearboxes, spare engines and so on.
“When you use all of these on Friday, they have to stay late on Friday night because there is no curfew on Friday night on the sprint weekend because the cars are in the parc ferme. So they stay until 10 or 11 point, replenish the spares they just used, and make sure we have the engine and transmission ready for when we do the next one.
“So, it was a real double whammy for them. They had a very grueling Friday.”
Also read:
He added: “The next thing they have to do is a grueling 14-hour flight to Miami and some of them will go straight to work on Tuesday morning.
“It’s not easy how you recover from that, especially going straight into another game. But we’ll do our best.
“Some people will have a day off on Tuesday, no doubt enjoying the sun and relaxing. We will do what we can for those who work long hours here (in Baku) and have to work on Tuesday. Four let them go.
“It at least gives them some time off to have a meal and a beer or whatever it is that people do to recover.”
Esteban Ocon had a great Sunday afternoon. Across the streets of Monaco, the Frenchman appeared to be at one with his Alps, which eventually even earned him a podium finish. Ocon told a news conference that he looked back on the weekend with a very good feeling.
The Red Bull driver was last in Sunday’s race and was out in Q1 qualifying.
He went on to make five pit stops in a dismal race that saw him twice passed by team-mate and race winner Max Verstappen, who now leads the championship by 39 points.
Although it marked Perez’s first game of the season without scoring, the Mexican said his error was “costly” and “unacceptable”.
He said: “We paid for my mistake and it was very costly. I just have to apologize to my whole team because it was unacceptable for this kind of mistake to be made.
“I have to move on and learn from it, I can’t afford another zero in the tournament.”
Despite the poor finish, Perez had a “very good” start to the race, finishing 15th on lap 30, but dropped back into the standings after a couple of incidents and a period of rain.
He also collided with Haas driver Kevin Magnussen in the corner on lap 34, breaking his front wing.
Perez said he “didn’t know what happened” but was “considerably hurt” by the incident.
He added: “It went well. Unfortunately I hit traffic early on and that put us back where we were. Then it rained and we were one of the last to pit.
Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB19, Zhou Guanyu, Alfa Romeo C43
“Then I cut the wall and it all became a mess. Me and Magnussen broke my front wing and he just came out of the chicane (deeply) and it went bad.
“When you’re in those positions, you’re always taking a lot of risks.”
Also read:
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said it had been a “bad weekend” for Perez, blaming the poor result on a crash in qualifying that “put you at a disadvantage”.
He also said Perez was inside Ocon’s maintenance window before getting stuck behind slow-moving traffic.
Horner said: “We took a very aggressive strategy. Stopped on the first lap and you could see how fast he was in the free space and how much the others were saving.
“He actually came back inside the pit window on Esteban Ocon, and then (Logan) Sargeant and the slow car started to struggle and, of course, you couldn’t overtake.
“Then he got involved in a melee with (George) Russell and damaged the front wing. It was just one of those weekends where he got nothing done.
“He saved a lot of money in the pool, so he might need a new pair of underwear after that.
“For him, it’s just one of those weekends where[he should]turn the page and I think for him, the sooner he gets to Barcelona the better.”
Max Verstappen gave a masterclass in the narrow streets of Monte Carlo. The Dutchman once again showed his raw talent, whether in the rain or on dry tarmac. If the Dutchman fails to win, there are still two contenders for the title. Teammate Sergio Perez and his friend Fernando Alonso. Will the Spaniard get another chance at victory soon? Verstappen responded at a press conference.