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Alpine director Alain Permaine has commended the team for its ability to bounce back after a shocking weekend in Baku. The French team did not have the best of starts to the season as, for one reason or the other, drivers continue to run into a problem that compromised the end result of the team.
The race in Bahrain saw both the Alpine drivers' races compromised, while in Australia, both Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly collided with each other. The team's start of the season hit rock bottom in Baku when Gasly's power unit got compromised during free practice and then the team went ahead with the wrong setup.
After getting publicly thrashed by Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi, the French team has put together a remarkable turnaround. The team has scored double points finishes in Miami, Monaco, and Barcelona with Esteban Ocon even securing a podium for the team.
Talking about the turnaround, Alain Permaine told RacingNews365.com that this was one of the major areas where the team showed an ability to bounce back from adversity. He said,
"Baku was very difficult. We put our hands up, we made mistakes and we didn't do a good job. We showed in Miami we can bounce back and we have [since] shown we can bounce back even stronger."
Alpine package is not erratic
Alpine started the season tentatively in Bahrain where the car was just not in the league of the top five teams. Subsequently, though, the team has continued to extract more and more pace from the car, which helped the team to secure a podium in Monaco as well. In all of this though, the car has still shown fluctuations in form from track to track.
When questioned about the erratic nature of the car, Permaine felt that except for Baku, there hasn't really been a track where Alpine has been erratic:
"We are learning about it every week. It certainly wasn't an easy car in Bahrain and we didn't have an easy test or an easy race. It doesn't feel erratic to us - the only erratic one was Baku where we had an awful weekend. But it feels like we are learning and understanding more about it all the time. It feels like we are making progress with it."
The French team started the season with a target of finishing 4th in the championship. Unfortunately, that target appears to be a long shot for now as Aston Martin's leap to the front has hurt the team's plans.
