Fernando Alonso suffered from a lack of power during the Canadian GP due to an Alpine engine problem, and Esteban Ocon lagged a bit behind in order to allow his teammate to activate DRS
With Fernando Alonso starting from second place on the grid, Alpine was looking for an outstanding result at the Canadian Grand Prix, held last Sunday (19). However, the Spaniard suffered an engine problem in the middle of the race and lost power, which made it impossible for him to maintain a top-5 position. In addition, a post-race punishment dropped the two-time champion by two more positions.
After the race, Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer explained the problem with the Spaniard's car. Although he had not yet analyzed the situation, the Romanian explained that the #14 seemed to suffer from an air leak, and Esteban Ocon lagged a bit behind to help the Spaniard get extra speed with the opening of the mobile wing.
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"In the middle of the race, he [Alonso] started to complain of excessive cut [in the engine], and it seemed that he had some kind of air leak, but we need to look into it," Szafnauer told English portal Sky F1 after the race. "Esteban [Ocon] had no problems and was a little bit faster at the end. He just slowed down a bit so that he could allow the opening of the mobile wing [for Alonso]," the Alpine boss explained.
"I think without the movable wing and with the excessive cuts, Fernando would have been at risk of being overtaken," Szafnauer admitted. "So Esteban helped," the Romanian pointed out.
With Alonso clearly disappointed by the loss of positions and still trying to complete the race ahead of Ocon, Szafnauer explained that it would be impossible for Alpine to allow the exchange between the drivers without risking losing his position to other cars. Thus, Fernando used DRS to keep competitors behind, but did not threaten the Frenchman's position.
"We couldn't change the order, because we would be vulnerable," he admitted. "So, yes, it was the right thing to do and Esteban stayed a bit behind to allow DRS. He could have just sped up, but that wouldn't have been good for the team," he pointed out.