22/10/2023
NEWS STORY
Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake couldn't convert its qualifying positions into points at the United States Grand Prix, as Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu finished 14th and 15th respectively at the Circuit of the Americas. Both drivers were involved in battles from lights to flag, but the top ten remained elusive.
Today's result leaves the team in eighth place in the constructors' championship, with the gap from Williams and the advantage over Haas unchanged from the previous round in Qatar. The team will now move to Mexico, for the second part of the triple header in the Americas.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: "This weekend has been a tough one for our team: we lost ground throughout the sessions, and we will need to analyse everything in detail to quickly understand what didn't work for us. The car balance on all tyre compounds just wasn't there today, and that made both attacking and defending a difficult task for our drivers. Both Valtteri and Zhou drove a clean race, even though that wasn't sufficient to advance through the field and score some points. There is quite a lot of work ahead of us over the next few days, before we head to Mexico for the second stage of this American triple header: I am confident that, with different track conditions, we'll be able to quickly get back to the pace we had shown over the last couple of races, and get more chances to climb our way into the top ten again."
Valtteri Bottas: "We gave everything out there today: strategy-wise, we did everything right, but unfortunately we just lacked pace throughout the weekend compared to our direct competitors. The bumpiness of the track also played a factor in our performance, as we had to run our car slightly higher than we wanted and thus sacrificed some downforce, which did not allow us to extract the most from our upgrades. As a slight positive, our direct competitors didn't score many points either today, which leaves the battle for seventh in the championship still open. I am looking forward to heading to Mexico in just a couple of days: last year the track suited our car well, and that hopefully will allow us to quickly get back in competitive form."
Zhou Guanyu: "We seemed to have a better car at the start of the weekend, especially after changing the setup after FP1, but in the end we couldn't hold the positions we had claimed on Friday. Unfortunately, we just didn't have enough pace to keep up with our direct competitors. I felt like I was lacking grip, and overall I haven't really been able to get in the mix. I think this race has been quite tricky on our end, due to a lot of degradation; we will surely need to analyse what exactly happened this weekend, but I have the feeling that, whatever we could have changed in terms of tyres or strategy today, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. Now, we will quickly regroup, and hopefully make a strong comeback next week in Mexico."