Pierre Gasly is the first driver to retire in 2022, during the Bahrain Grand Prix. At the end of the race, the back of its AlphaTauri caught fire, causing the safety car to exit. The Faenza team must now restore the car before the Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia, which will take place next weekend. Heavy repairs that may go through a change of chassis.
But the men of Franz Tost see the effects of this breakdown in the long term, which represents a source of concern. The damage suffered at Sakhir could force the team to use a second engine from Jeddah (out of a limit of three this season), which would ensure penalties for future races. The fire may also have damaged other parts of the power unit, some of which are limited to just two examples in all 23 races.
The source of satisfaction lies in the rhythm of Gasly, in the fight with Alonso and Magnussen in Bahrain. Asked by Motorsport.comthe Frenchman was surprised to be forced to retire. “I literally had no warning signals, which is kind of weird”says Gasly. “I’m not really sure what happened, the car stopped after the first corner and I parked it. Then it became a barbecue in the back…”
“We were very confident after testing, we had no worries, but this sport keeps you grounded at all times, you can never be too confident. I just hope the engine is not not dead, but we’ll deal with it. It’s not the result we were hoping for, especially with the race we were doing. I had a good start, I was fighting with Fernando [Alonso]which was nice, and also with Kevin [Magnussen]. We were comfortably in 8th position, so it’s a shame to miss out on those points.”
AlphaTauri technical director Jody Egginton confirms that the team had received no signs of such a problem. “The car was working perfectly, and the next minute it stopped completely. We suddenly lost power, the car stopped and there was fire. Its origin may come from elements that were too hot, that weren’t cooled down properly. We have to look at that, there’s a lot of superficial damage.”
The engineer expects to have a lot of work before the first free practice in Jeddah on Friday. “We are still assessing the damage”he says. “At a minimum we will have new suspension, a lot of the connectors will also be new and the body has been damaged. We will check the battery and the internal combustion engine, because there is a lot of fire extinguisher foam on and in the car. In the worst case, we will replace the power unit, but it’s too early to tell. Everything that was connected to the power unit and the gearbox was located in the area of the power unit. ‘fire. And again, all of that was hit by the fire extinguisher. So we can potentially send it all back to the factory and change those things.”