Laurent Rossi, Alpine's CEO, wants "two drivers" rather than just one regularly scoring points for the Renault-owned team.

The comments come amid growing complaints from Fernando Alonso regarding his recent "strange" string of reliability problems.

"Esteban (Ocon)'s car is always good," the Spaniard said after Austria, where he faced another problem - this time with his electronic control unit.

Otmar Szafnauer, head of the team that along with Rossi is supposedly considering swapping Alonso for Oscar Piastri in 2023, told the newspaper : "It was not an Alpine problem."

He denied that Alonso is increasingly frustrated with his situation in 2022.

"He was happy with the car in several GPs," Szafnauer insisted. "The car has speed. We are not failing Fernando - he has not been scoring points for various reasons."

When asked about the two-time world champion more generally, Szafnauer explained, "It's my first year working with Fernando, and from what I can see, he still loves to race.

"In life, you are happy when you exceed your expectations. If your expectations are realistic, you will end up happy. That goes not only for Fernando, but for all of us. But Fernando is still there.

As for Rossi, he was asked by da França whether he prefers a spectacular driver in qualifying like Alonso or a consistent scorer like Ocon, who already has a contract for next year.

"The Formula One fan loves the former, while the team boss tends to prefer the latter," he laughed. "What I want are two drivers who score points on a regular and similar basis."

"Lately, we've had some problems getting them into the points together, and even when we've succeeded, often one of them has been ejected because of punishments. It's been very frustrating."