Alpine Adds Insult to McLaren’s Injury - Brazil 2022
Source: FIA
Interlagos has long been a fan favourite for its tendency to produce thrilling races and this year’s Grand Prix was no exception. Mercedes finally found a harmony between car, driver and track to take their first win of the season to close out a challenging campaign to bring themselves back to the fight at the front. In doing so Mercedes upset Redbull, though they weren’t the only ones to do so. Alpine was another that took the fight to this year’s constructors champions – and they came out on top (at least Alonso did). But more importantly, Alpine’s double points finish meant they handsomely extended their advantage over McLaren, especially in the wake of their double retirement from the Brazil Grand Prix. So how did the Enstone team manage the feat, especially after such an abysmal sprint? Let’s jump straight into it.
When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade
Chart 1: Race Story – Cumulative Delta Plot
It was a short pause before the lights went out and the race got underway. All the drivers dashed away and to much surprise came out of sector 1 unscathed. The duelling continued through the tight and twisty sector two but Daniel Ricciardo was caught out amongst the pack and tapped Kevin Magnussen from the rear, sending him into a spin. The Dane rolled back across the tarmac toward the grass only to collect the perpetrator and take both drivers out of the race with terminal car damage. A small error from the Australian, but a clumsy one nonetheless and one that McLaren couldn’t afford in their conquest for P4 in the championship against Alpine. The incident invited a safety car and the race resumed on lap 7.
The race settled into a grove, though not until Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc had fallen to the rear of the field following their own individual tussles. The latter involved the other McLaren of Lando Norris who carried on although was falling away from the front pack at a considerable rate as shown in Chart 1 above. His pace was lacklustre as he lost out to the likes of Sebastian Vettel in the Aston Martin and was forced to pit once he had fallen back to as far as Valtteri Bottas’ position in the race.
Chart 2: Tyre Strategy Summary
And while all of this was occurring, Alpine opted for a different route with Fernando Alonso. After falling back toward the rear of the field in Saturday’s sprint race, Alonso went for a sort of extreme undercut to find himself in clean air. Rather than take a similar strategy to teammate Esteban Ocon who subscribed to a more conventional soft-medium-medium as shown in Chart 2 above, Alonso sought out the clean air to race at an offset to the rest of the competition. The benefits of this approach are more concentrated in the third stint where Alonso claws back a lot of time relative to the race leaders as shown in Chart 1 prior. This is despite using the medium tyre in every stint thus far even after knowing its lack of performance relative to the softs.
However, even though Alonso’s pace was strong, it was unlikely that he would make it to the end of the race on that tyre, let alone at that pace. As such, Alonso would need to take another trip into the pits, as confirmed by Chart 2 above. But was his pace good enough for a 3-stop strategy to overcome a 2-stop?
It would be when Alpine and Alonso received a helping hand from their adversaries in the form of a safety car following Norris’ mechanical retirement. Norris’ painful race came to an agonizing end after having endured deteriorating pace from his collision with Leclerc. Norris lost even more ground after the first set of pitstops as shown in Chart 1 earlier. And even after the second stop, he was making little improvement. Be that as it may, poor pace would have been preferred over the retirement as the latter brought out the second safety car which gifted Alonso a cheap third pitstop and a chance to utilise the faster soft tyre in the final stage of the race.
Chart 3: Race Pace Compared
The benefit to Alonso can be seen clearly in Chart 3 above. Alonso’s trend pace is superior to that of Ocon in the final stint and this is what allowed him to take the fight to the front of the grid after the safety car had neutralised the gaps between the cars. With superior grip and a lighter car, Alonso was able to make quick work of teammate Ocon as well as Bottas and Perez, the latter of whom was struggling after being marooned on the medium tyre. But Alonso’s charge wouldn’t end until he had also claimed the position of Verstappen.
Chart 4: Average Pace Compared
Alonso maximised the benefit of the safety car in his ability to switch to the optimal tyre with less time loss as well as closing the gap to the rest of the field in the final stages of the race where there was the goldilocks number of laps remaining – just enough to go on an overtaking spree but not enough to force tyre management tactics. The net consequence of this is that Alonso finished the race in P5 even though he didn’t have the 5th fastest pace on average as shown in Chart 4 above.
Ocon did well to take P8 over Bottas despite having the ninth-fastest pace. But this was the maximum that he could achieve given his more conventional strategy limiting his benefit from the safety car. It was a solid haul of points for the team especially given their starting point toward the back of the grid.
Watchpoints for the Next Grand Prix
The next and final stop is Abu Dhabi. With a 19-point lead and only one race to go, things are looking good for Alpine to close out P4 in the constructor’s championship. However, the car has been notorious for suffering reliability issues. As such, the French team is not out of the woods just yet. Can McLaren put on a perfect performance to finish the season with a show-stopper? Regardless of how this fight plays out, the curtain call for Sebastian Vettel will make for a memorable finish to his decorated career. Here’s to finishing things on a high. I’ll see you at the next one.
