07/05/2023
NEWS STORY
Yuki Tsunoda: "It was a good race, effort and recovery from the team and myself. I felt like I was able to extract the most out of the car. It's a shame I couldn't score any points, I gave it my all, but I am happy with my performance. It was a tough race mentally; there weren't many breaks because there was always someone either in front of or behind me. I didn't expect our race pace to be that strong, but it's encouraging to see for the races to come. I felt confident with the brakes, which is why I was able to overtake quite a lot by sending it into the corner. We've got upgrades coming to Imola, so we hope they go well to allow us to score points consistently."
Nyck de Vries: "After lap one, I was on the back foot. It was my mistake, I locked up and Norris and I touched. This compromised our first stint a little because there were a lot of vibrations on the right front which affected our pace. When you're so behind and out of DRS range, you lose so much time on the straights that it's tough to catch up. I was at the back, alone, so it naturally becomes easier when you're not fighting as hard as in the middle of the pack when every moment counts. The weekend went a little up and down and started difficult; yesterday we had a better day and today was a shame that we lost so many positions on the first lap. We are bringing updates to Imola, so hopefully we can improve and go again."
Guillaume Dezoteux (Head of Vehicle Performance): "We can be very happy with the eleventh position that Yuki brought home. He finished only 1.3s behind Magnussen, who started on the second row and he managed to keep Stroll behind until the chequered flag. Obviously, we would have liked a point to reward such a solid race, but with everybody finishing the race, we knew that from P17 on the grid it would have been extremely difficult. In the first stint on hard tyres, Yuki was consistent and patient, and his good tyre management allowed him to go long. After pitting on lap 37, he was in front of Hulkenberg and made some great overtaking manoeuvres on Albon and Bottas.
"Nyck's race was more difficult. After a big front lock at the start, he had a lot of vibrations from his tyres which affected his pace. Moving onto the hard tyres the balance and performance improved, so he managed to overtake Piastri on track after many laps battling with him.
"This race is encouraging for the team. The car keeps improving race by race but the midfield remains tight, which makes finishing in the points challenging. We have another significant aero update coming to Imola and we hope it will help us improve further, to become regular point finishers."
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "I'd firstly like to thank the organisers for this fantastic venue and event, and to all the fans who came to watch. I think they saw an interesting race, especially with Max Verstappen starting out of position and fighting his way back, for another impressive win.
"As for our race weekend, we have been struggling from the beginning and we qualified only P15 with Nyck and P17 with Yuki. We chose two different strategies for this race; Yuki started on the hard tyre and Nyck started on the medium. Yuki made a strong start and overtook some cars on the first lap, then he drove a very good and competitive race. He overtook Albon twice, he passed Hulkenberg and Bottas and finished in P11, just 1.3 seconds behind Magnussen. Yuki also defended well against Stroll in the last few laps, and I must say that in the race our car showed a much better performance than in qualifying. We now have to analyse what we can do to optimise our qualifying pace. Nyck's start was good, but in the first corner he crashed into Norris by breaking a bit too late, which caused a flat spot on his tyres and then some vibrations. We brought him in to change from the medium tyre to the hard, and the rest of the afternoon was ok for him, but he lost his race with the contact at the beginning. Both drivers had good tyre management, which was also important for the overall performance of the car."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Miami here.