04/09/2022
NEWS STORY
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: I think we can be pretty pleased with the way that we executed the race today. There were a huge range of valid strategies, with all three compounds offering potentially useful trades in the overcast conditions. The Safety Car periods mixed things up a little and gave teams the opportunity to change from their base strategies. We were quite comfortable on the Medium tyre and looked to be finding a good rhythm on the Hard before the Safety Car gave us the opportunity to switch Alex to the Soft. Ultimately, we couldn't score any points and the Safety Car didn't help our cause today as it allowed Gasly a free tyre change. However, we were able to beat the Alfa Romeo and Haas cars as well as a McLaren and an Aston Martin. It was a shame to finish behind Pierre for the second weekend in a row, but he had good pace and qualified four places ahead of Alex. Hopefully we can turn the tables on him next weekend!
Nicky went for an aggressive start on the Soft tyre but fell back and completed a fairly lonely race in free air. He showed decent pace on new tyres but struggled to control the degradation. We will investigate this over the coming days to see if we can find some ways to improve the situation in Monza.
Alex Albon: I think coming into today, we didn't have high expectations, so think we've proven we're not too far away from the points. We didn't expect much from the high downforce circuit, so it's positive and I think going forward we won't be so scared of these types of circuits and can focus on fighting for points. I was happy with the car, despite just lacking a bit of lap time. There's still a little bit to find, but we can work on this and look at what we can do, as right now we're fine tuning the package and know its limitations. It's not points but it's a good job.
Nicholas Latifi: It was just a race to forget really. We've been struggling with pace the whole weekend and it's quite confusing to me as to why. Due to the issue in qualifying we didn't really get the chance to see where we would have been on pace, so one to learn from.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Zandvoort here.