02/07/2023
NEWS STORY
Nyck de Vries: "I think it was a solid race today. We made some overnight changes to the car to find more performance, which meant we started the race from the pitlane. It certainly played out well for us as the early Virtual Safety Car closed the gap between all the cars. In terms of execution, I think we did a good job and extracted the maximum out of our package, we just lacked pace to fight further towards the top ten. I'll take the penalty that the stewards gave me, we are just trying to find the limit, but thankfully we made a sufficient gap to not lose any positions. I still have a lot to improve on, and I'm certainly not yet at the level I want to be, but collectively, we are trying to consistently improve."
Yuki Tsunoda: "At the start, I was aggressive trying to make up as many positions as possible. It could've gone well, but unfortunately, we damaged the car going into turn one and went off-track at turn four. I don't know if I sustained damage on the floor from this, but afterwards, I didn't have pace, so it was a super difficult drive. I couldn't keep the car within the track limits, and I can definitely learn from this in the future, but overall, it was just a challenging race."
Jonathan Eddolls (Chief Race Engineer): "With Nyck qualifying P20 on Friday, we elected to remove his car from Parc Ferme and make setup changes, including the rear wing level and suspension, which meant he started from the pitlane. Magnussen did the same, so we were racing with him from the pit exit at the start of the race. Yuki lost a large part of the front wing in turn one and subsequently ran off-track in turn four, therefore he had to pit on the first lap, which put him on the back foot. It was clear in the first stint that tyre degradation was on the high side and would result in a multi-stop race. Unfortunately, we pitted Nyck on lap 12, the lap before the Safety Car was deployed, while others benefitted from the opportunity and were able jump him, which was very unlucky. After the Safety Car period, Yuki struggled with understeer, which we corrected a lot at the next pit stop with a large flap adjustment, so we need to understand if there was damage on his car. From then on, and for both cars, it was a case of splitting up the race with pitstops to optimise tyre degradation and track position. Overall, we didn't have the pace to challenge for points. Track limits were also costly for Yuki, with him receiving a total of 15 seconds worth of penalties, which put him in P18 at the chequered flag. Nyck made some progress in the race and finished five places higher than he started, which is encouraging to see. Our focus now turns to Silverstone, where we are bringing a further aero update, addressing some of the weaknesses of the AT04. We will keep pushing hard and remain positive for the upcoming races."
Check out our Sunday gallery from the Red Bull Ring here.