F1 News
Red flag issue causes Alpine to switch entire power unit in China
After stopping in the only free practice session and causing a red flag as a result, Jack Doohan has got an entire new power unit fitted in his Alpine car in China. While it did not translate into the result he wanted, the Australian was satisfied with his car.
For the Australian ahead of Sprint Qualifying, a new internal combustion engine, turbocharger, MGU-H, MGU-K and exhaust system was all fitted ahead. As he is not exceeding the limit of the parts allowed, he will not receive a penalty. While he finished in P16 and could not make it through to SQ2, he managed to outqualify his teammate Pierre Gasly by 0.065 seconds.
Still, Doohan felt the car was good after Alpine had to complete some work in between the two sessions on Friday. "It was clearly not the result we wanted today but I am pleased with how the car felt. In the end, a combination of factors fed into the frustrating outcome in Sprint Qualifying, particularly traffic on track during the push lap, but we will keep our heads down and aim to maximise what we can from the Sprint Race in the morning," he said in Alpine's press release.
He added that he also did not miss out on much in the only practice session, which could have hurt the rookie driver a lot. "Fortunately, I completed the majority of our run plan in Free Practice 1 before the issue on track and it was important to get up to speed at this track in F1 machinery, especially with the new track surface, which provided plenty of grip. The car felt good across the day so we will look into the data and see what we can improve tomorrow in Qualifying and hopefully put ourselves in a much better position for the Grand Prix."
The team's Racing Director, Dave Greenwood also praised his team for the quick turnaround. "With only one hour of practice, we managed to make some positive steps forward with the balance and set-up between sessions. The team also did a great job to turn around Jack’s car after stopping on track with a technical issue this morning."
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