otmar szafnauer came to the forefront of controversy after Fernando Alonso to get on the podium in his first race with Aston Martin coming back once again referring to his age.
The disagreements between the two-time world champion of Formula 1 and the French team were latent in the second part of the season, and already dressed in green from Enstone they do not miss the opportunity to ‘stir up’ their former driver.
Of course, the Romanian does not hide from reality and after the Bahrain Grand Prix recognized the superiority of Aston Martin at the start of the season… although always with a ‘but’.
“Congratulations to them, we want to beat them and we will do our best to get closer. The Bahrain race was not normal for us, normally we don’t make operational mistakes and also Pierre (Gasly) started last. I think Lance (Stroll) was just ahead of us, but I still don’t know if in a normal race we can beat them. we will reflect, we are not where we want“Szafnauer explained.
The Alpine boss, who was previously at the Silverstone brand, compared Aston Martin to Force India in 2014.
“To be fair, it was always a good and efficient team. The Mercedes wind tunnel is very good and I don’t think sharing it is a penalty, because otherwise people wouldn’t share it. Whether you have your own or share it, there is no difference significant. Congratulations to them. But Force India was exactly the same team in 2014, we were fourth and had great race pace“, he pointed.
Even so, he lowers his head and acknowledges that the evolution of the British is far from his, despite the fact that both shared a similar goal of winning in 100 races (two years ago).
“Congratulations to Aston (Martin) for taking such a big step, but we have to beat them too and we have to see how close we are to pole position and in race pace compared to last year. What we need is to get closer every year. Aston (Martin) made tremendous progress and we must too“, he mused.
On the grotesque lived in Sakhir with the triple penalty and subsequent abandonment of Esteban Oconthe Romanian assures that “They are operational errors and we don’t have to make them again.”
“The grid penalty is that I was out of position at the start. Then there was a second left at the ‘pit-stop’ before starting to work on the car. We have a sound system in the headphones of the mechanics that went ahead by four hundredths The third, speeding. We have a meter on the limiter and I think it kicked in half a meter late.“, settled.
