Alpine boss shrugs off cost cap concerns after Melbourne

The Alpine F1 team has been picking up the pieces ever since a nightmare end to the Australian Grand Prix at the beginning of the month.

Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon had been set for a double points finish in Melbourne, until a chaotic late restart ended up in the two drivers inadvertently taking each other out.

As well as walking away empty handed when it came to the points, Alpine was also left counting the cost in terms of damage to both race cars - and the impact this could have on meeting the 2023 budget cap.

• Read also: Ocon says Alpine surge possible, 'or no point racing'

"From a budget cap perspective, I think we are going to be okay from everything I know," team principal Otmar Szafnauer insisted when speaking with the media earlier this month.

"I don't think there's any concerns [but] it will be costly," he admitted. "From a money perspective, it probably would have been a lot less costly had it not happened."

At least the team had more time than usual between races to carry out repairs and manufacturer replacement parts and upgrades, thanks to an extra long Easter break as a result of the cancellation of the Chinese GP on COVID concerns.

"The accident has shifted the priorities," Szafnauer admitted. "For now, we need spare parts for Baku. We will pull out all the stops to get ample spares to the next race.

"And the upgrades we have coming," he added. "We have a decent-size upgrade coming for Baku and then a little bit more only a week later in Miami, so we continue to push the upgrades out."

At the time, Ocon was critical of the way the late standing restart had been handled by race control as posing unnecessary risk to the drivers, but Szafnauer was taking a more even-handed view.

"The way I look at it is, a restart or a start of a Grand Prix is one of the most exciting parts of the race," he explained. "We have many, many starts, most of which are not risky. We get through, and they're great drivers.

"A lot of things change and change very quickly," he continued. "I've seen many starts in damp conditions where we're fine.

"It is an exciting part of the race but, oftentimes, us teams are the ones who cause the situation where a restart needs to happen."

In this case the red flag and restart were caused by an accident for Haas' Kevin Magnussen leaving debris on the track, forcing race control to suspend the race while it was cleaned up.

"Had we not had debris on the track that could cause punctures, we probably wouldn't have had a restart here," Szafnauer pointed out.

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