Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer has explained that his team was confident Esteban Ocon’s rear wing would not fail during the Canadian Grand Prix.
The Frenchman completed the final laps of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve with his rear wing wobbling, most notably as he rode kerbs.
Following him at the time, Lando Norris reported it to the McLaren pit wall, while at Alpine, Szafnauer confirmed they were in contact with the FIA.
The team believed the wing was safe to complete the remaining laps.
“It didn’t fail; it stayed on,” Szafnauer pointed out.
“We designed that wing, and we manufacture it, so that failure mode was probably most familiar to us.
“We were happy that it wasn’t going to come off.
“We test for that in R&D, so we put it through those tests,” he added.
“So we’re happy that with all the testing that we do, it wasn’t [going to fail].”
While internally satisfied that the wing was not dangerous, the Alpine pit wall had to issue that reassurance to the FIA.
A rear wing failure is high risk, to both the driver of the car and those trailing it.
Should it have broken free, Ocon would likely have been pitched into a spin immediately, while the flying bodywork posed a risk to the likes of Norris behind.
“We talked about it, and the FIA came to us as well and said it looks like your rear wing’s moving, and we looked at it and talked about it.,” Szafnauer said.
“We were confident that with a couple of laps left that it was going to be fine.”
Ocon ended the race eighth, one spot behind Alex Albon’s Williams after a gamble on strategy netted the Grove operation seventh place.
It was a close run thing, however, with just 0.879s between the pair at the chequered flag.
“Williams did one less stop than we did,” Szafnauer said of how Albon beat Ocon.
“It was difficult to predict if the tyre was going to make it to the end.
“Williams had nothing to lose,” he added.
“Had they stopped, they wouldn’t have been in the points. We did stop.
“In the end, we’re probably, I don’t know, six- to seven-tenths of a lap quicker than him – with that seven-tenths and DRS and their strategy of low drag, we couldn’t overtake them.
“Looking back at it now and just seeing what they did, we would have done the same and made it, and would have been a couple of places ahead.”
Across the garage, Pierre Gasly ended the race 12th, his finishing position also linked to the Lap 12 Safety Car.
“Pierre was compromised because we pitted him early for clean air because he had good underlying pace, and then the safety car came out,” Szafnauer explained.
“Once that happened, with everyone pitting, and pitting in less time, his race was compromised.”
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