F1 News: Alpine Reveal What Caused Fernando Alonso’s Car To Set On Fire During Testing
After less than an hour into the third day of F1 testing in Barcelona, Fernando Alonso was forced to come to a stop as his Alpine A522 shut down around him. This was after a successful day of 146 laps on Thursday.
Moments after leaving the garage this morning, Alonso span the car into a gravel trap. Unfortunately for the Spanish driver, he was soon after pulled off the track “after the car lost pressure in the final sector”. This was a shame as he’d recently been hitting the top of the timesheet with excellent lap times beforehand.
The car was smoking as marshals jumped onto the side of the track to extinguish the fire.
Since this, Alpine has found the culprit, blaming hydraulics. They posted the following to Twitter:
“Team Statement:
After further investigations in the garage following Fernando Alonso’s on-track stoppage earlier this morning, the team can confirm the issue was a problem with the hydraulics. A minor sealing issue led to a fire in the back of the car.
“The team has successfully completed 266 laps during the three days of the Barcelona shakedown. Repairs on the car will continue, and as a result we won’t be running for the remainder of the day. We look forward to be back in action at the next test in Bahrain.”
Unfortunately, Alpine will not be returning to the track for testing at Barcelona, despite Esteban Ocon scheduled to sit behind the wheel for the afternoon. But Alpine should leave with a smile on their faces as Alonso posted a lap time of 1m21.242s on C3 tyres. A PB for the Alpine team.
