27/10/2024
NEWS STORY
Sven Smeets, Sporting Director: Similar to last week, we decided to split the cars on different start tyres with Alex starting on the Medium tyre and Franco on the Hard.
Unfortunately, Alex's race was over before it began after being squeezed under braking into Turn 1 by Gasly and Tsunoda, meaning immediate retirement. There was nothing Alex could've done to avoid the accident and it's disappointing for him after being in a great position to fight for points today.
For Franco, he had a good race but unfortunately couldn't climb into the points and had to settle for P12, after some big fights on track with other cars. A difficult and frustrating afternoon for the team, especially knowing that the car had the pace to fight for points. We will now regroup and put our full focus into Brazil which will be the second Sprint Race of this triple-header.
Franco Colapinto: We had a good race today but, of course, starting from P16 with a McLaren and a Red Bull behind me, it was always going to be tricky. It was difficult after yesterday's Qualifying as we suffered a lot with the rear tyres, however we did a good job in maximising what we had and managing with the tools available to try to fix the balance. Overall, it was a job well done but not quite enough for points. We'll turn our focus to Brazil where we'll aim to fight for points as a team.
Alex Albon: It was a tricky one today. We didn't have the best launch, and everyone was fighting for the same position into Turn 1, so it's unfortunate that we got squeezed with nowhere to go, but that's racing. It's been a tough few weeks with multiple incidents and some bad timing, so we need to find a way to bounce back. Looking at the positives, we've learned a lot this weekend and finally started to understand and correct some of the balance issues we've been struggling with over the last few races. I also think we could've scored points today, so hopefully, we can turn things around and focus on Brazil, the last race of the triple-header.