Over 50% of the seasonal ‘turnover’ in a single Sunday
Ten points from Bahrain in Suzuka, six on Sunday in Lusail alone: in Qatar Alfa Romeo it could have saved the season and, who knows, even relaunched the challenge against Williams for seventh place in the Constructors’ standings. The Hinwil team, in fact, celebrated the eighth place of Valtteri Bottas and the ninth of Guan Yu Zhou, six golden points which brought Alfa Romeo to 16th in the Constructors’ standings, +4 over Haas, which remained at dry. On a strategic level, the men represented on the track by Alessandro Alunni Bravi were perfect, removing Guan Yu Zhou and Valtteri Bottas from traffic as much as possible, allowing them to push without worrying too much about lapping and duels in the race (especially with regards to the Finn, who was stopped immediately under the Safety Car regime to switch to the hard compound). Below are the words of the team principal and the drivers at the end of a Sunday of vital importance for Alfa Romeo.
The words of Alessandro Alunni Well done
“We managed to do the race we had set ourselves for a long time. We knew we had the potential to score points, but we had to drive the perfect race to bring this result home. The strategy was spot on, the pit stops were flawless and the drivers put in two solid performances, pushing from the first to the last lap without errors. It’s a nice reward for all the work done by the Hinwil team, our race team here and Ferrari: we continue to bring new updates to the track, while we continue relentlessly, in the factory, in simulations and on the track, to understand and extract performance from our evolving package. The result in Qatar increases our confidence and strengthens our belief that we can score points in any match if we do our job like tonight. Now we need to take another step forward and build on the foundations we laid in Lusail to continue to grow as a team for the rest of the season. Our goal remains seventh place in the championship, we will never stop repeating it. It will be difficult, it will be a tough fight, but we have the people, the drivers and the commitment to do it. It will be difficult, of course, but we will make life difficult for our competitors too.”
The words of Valtteri Bottas
“I am really satisfied with the result we brought home. The heat and humidity were truly extreme and the conditions made the job even more difficult, but we knew we had the potential to do well and we succeeded, thanks to a clean strategy and a flawless race. This result is a great reward for the whole team, both here and back home in Hinwil, for the hard work they have put in over the last few weeks on the updates; we continue to extract more from this package, which is encouraging for future races. With the points gained in Qatar we improved our position in the Constructors’ Championshipmoving up to eighth place, and we will continue to work hard to advance further and reach our goal for the season.”
The words of Guan Yu Zhou
“It was an extraordinary race, we went from the back of the grid to the top ten: we had a good strategy, we managed the tires well and we didn’t make any mistakes, and all this was the key to the final result. We were fast on the hard tyres, our pace in the last stint was fantastic and this allowed us to keep pace with our rivals: in the last stint, it wasn’t clear where everyone was with the penalty, so it’s good to be ninth at the end. It wasn’t an easy race, we had to make some good overtakings and defend ourselves hard at times: it was important to stay within the limits of the track, but we did it well. I’m really exhausted, I’ve never pushed so hard in these conditions, but this is an amazing reward for all of us after such a difficult period. We never gave up when things were tough, and on this occasion we put the pieces together when it mattered.”
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