Alpine’s Otmar Szafnauer: “It’s always great when we race in the United States”

BWT Alpine F1 Team’s Principal Otmar Szafnauer is looking forward to being back on home turf as the FIA Formula 1 World Championship returns to Austin for the United States Grand Prix.

Alpine had a great result last time round at the Suzuka International Racing Course for the Japanese Grand Prix as Esteban Ocon fought of seven time World Champion Lewis Hamilton in wet conditions to finish in fourth place and Fernando Alonso finished in seventh, the Spaniard missing out on sixth place by eleven hundredths of a second in an epic photo finish with Sebastian Vettel.

The double points finish for Alpine allowed them to climb ahead of McLaren F1 Team in the Constructors’ Championship as they lead the British team by thirteen points, and Szafnauer is hoping that the team can extend their gap in fourth place in the standings over their rivals.

Szafnauer spoke about returning to one of his favourite races in the Formula 1 calendar as the team have bought a small modification to its recently upgraded floor of the car for this weekend’s race with Alpine’s Team Principal confirming that this will be their final upgrade of the year.

“It’s always great when we race in the United States – home turf for me – especially in Austin, which is a favourite among many of us in Formula 1,” said Szafnauer. “It’s a very demanding racetrack that usually brings some good racing with a fast first sector, the long, back straight and some slow-speed corners towards the end, which has some opportunities for overtaking.

“We brought a new floor to the car for Singapore and Japan and that worked as expected. We especially saw the improvements at Suzuka, which is a more conventional circuit than Marina Bay, and we were satisfied with how it performed and that bodes well for futures races.

“For Austin, we are bringing a small modification to the outer section of the latest floor, which is our final update of the year.”