Alpine dismiss concerns over impact of 'costly' Australia crash

Alpine boss Otmar Szafnauer is not concerned by a possible cost cap impact from the squad's dramatic exit out of the Australian Grand Prix.

Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon made contact at the penultimate restart of an eventful race, resulting in both retiring from the running due to the damage sustained.

When asked about the ramifications from this on the budget cap, Szafnauer voiced his confidence that the team would not be too greatly affected.

"From a budget cap perspective, I think we are going to be okay, from everything I know," the Team Principal explained to media, including RacingNews365.com.

"So I don't think there's any concerns. It will be costly so, from a money perspective, it probably would have been a lot less costly had it not happened."

Preparations for Baku

In terms of whether there could be an impact on the team's preparations for the next race on the calendar – the Azerbaijan Grand Prix – Szafnauer suggested that the squad would work hard to prevent any issues.

"[For] getting parts ready for the next race, I don't know yet [what the impact will be]," Szafnauer said after the race in Melbourne.

"It's a little bit too early to tell, but we will pull out all the stops to get ample spares to the next race, and [to bring] the upgrade we have coming."

Risks from restarts?

Some drivers were vocal about standing restarts posing unnecessary risk after the Australian Grand Prix, with Ocon amongst those to criticise the actions of other drivers into Turn 1.

Szafnauer has given his take on the issue and suggested that many restarts have much less dramatic results.

"The way I I look at it is, a restart or a start of a Grand Prix is one of the most exciting parts of the race," Szafnauer explained.

"A lot of things change and change very quickly. We have many, many starts, most of which are not risky. We get through, and they're great drivers.

"I've seen many starts in damp conditions where we're fine. So yeah, 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.

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