Alpine to implement at U.S. Grand Prix final update of 2022

Alpine will bring its final development of the 2022 F1 season to this weekend's U.S. Grand Prix in Austin where the French outfit will resume its battle for P4 in the Constructors' championship with McLaren.

Alpine comprehensively outpaced and outscored its papaya rival last time out in Japan thanks in part to the effectiveness of the new floor introduced by the Enstone outfit in Singapore.

This weekend's update at The Circuit of the Americas is but a small modification, but the French outfit will accept even small gains to protect its 13-point advantage over McLaren in the standings.

"Firstly, it’s been a fantastic effort on car development so far this season, so credit to everyone involved in ensuring a constant flow of updates at most races this year," commented Alpine team principal Otmar Szafnauer.

"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."

• Read also: Alonso sees Alpine-McLaren battle going down to the wire

After suffering a dismal pointless race weekend in Singapore, Alpine put itself back on track at Suzuka where Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso finished respectively fourth and seventh.

"It was important for us to recover after the disappointment in Singapore and come back with a strong race in Suzuka, which we duly achieved," added Szafnauer.

"I was impressed with the team’s attitude to quickly put behind one poor race and convert that into our best result of the season one race later.

"We need a few more strong performances like this and avoid reliability issues if we are to achieve our targets for the season."

While confident of producing a strong result this weekend, Szafnauer is well aware of the challenges offered by Austin's bumpy Circuit of the Americas.

"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," said the American.

"It’s been resurfaced in the last year to combat some of the bumps we experienced there last season, so that will be interesting to understand in Practice on Friday."

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