F1 News: Pierre Gasly's Alpine Issue Identified Ahead of Austrian Grand Prix

A "bulletproof" part of the steering wheel caused the Alpine F1 car to come to a halt during FP1 in Canada

The Alpine Formula 1 team has been encountering multiple reliability issues with their car. In Baku, a hydraulic leak set fire to Pierre Gasly's car while teammate Esteban Ocon missed the first practice as a result of a gearbox problem.

The latest problem however comes from Gasly's car that caused a red flag during the first free practice in Canada. The French racer suspected a driveshaft failure but after the investigation, the culprit, as it turns out, is the steering wheel that got disconnected from the battery and caused the clutch to engage automatically. 

Alpine Sporting Director Alan Permane says the team is working to address the issues without panicking. Accepting the reliability concerns, he says: 

“You just have to go back, look at the life of everything. Look at if (a part) has been mistreated in any way - has it had a hard life somehow? Try and understand why that has failed.

Yes, we have had some reliability problems and we do need to get on top of them. But there isn't one thing that we're panicking about. We've had some niggles and I'm sure we will iron them out."

Explaining the cause of Gasly stopping in Montreal, Alan reckoned it was a one-off occurrence since the "bulletproof" part that failed has been present on every F1 car since 2008. He said:

“We have to take responsibility for it, honestly. The steering wheel problem we had with Pierre's car is a complete freak.

I was talking to the electronic guys. It's a part we buy, and I think it's probably on every single steering wheel up and down the pit lane. The design hasn't changed since 2008 and it's been bulletproof.

The power supply failed and we lost the clutch. That's why you heard Pierre say he thought he'd lost the driveshaft. But what had actually happened, it pushed the clutch in. Those things are tricky.”

Commenting further on the 2022 trend of bringing updates continuously to the F1 car from results derived through wind tunnel simulations, Alan Permane suggests that the Alpine F1 car will receive a new floor. 

The upgrades would help the team not only in terms of performance, but it would also mean that Alpine is listed on the FIA car presentation submissions document for upgrades at every race. He said: 

“Some stuff is coming. There'll be stuff at every race. I know what we've got coming to Spielberg (next race, Austria).

We have a new floor in the works. It's in the cycle. I'm not sure whether it's out of aero yet and into design or they're still adding more downforce, but there will be a new floor at some point.

It's just continual and I'm very sure every race we'll be putting something on that (FIA) document.”