Alfa Romeo Racing hoped for more at the Circuit of the Americas this weekend but came away with nothing after finishing out of the points.
Drivers Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi finished eleventh and fourteenth respectively.
Räikkönen said that there were “a lot of positives” the team could take from the race, using them to develop for the last couple of races of the season.
“There were a lot of positives we can take from this race, even though finishing 11th and out of the points is annoying after a fairly competitive race,” said the Finn.
He added that despite his less than favourable result, he was pleased to be able to fight from the beginning of the race.
“I had a really good start, we looked a lot better and at least we were in the fight from start to finish. It’s something we can work on and build on for the next races.”
Räikkönen’s Italian team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi remains optimistic despite finishing in fourteenth position.
Giovinazzi realised he may have finished further down the grid as he was on a different strategy compared to Räikkönen.
“As a team, we looked stronger this weekend so we can be optimistic for the future, even if we didn’t score today. We made a decision to go for a different strategy compared to Kimi and in the end it worked out better for him.
I started on mediums but struggled for grip. It got a bit better when we switched to softs but by then it was too late to make a difference.”
He has put the troubles of the weekend behind him, and is instead focused on the second last race of the season at Interlagos in a couple of weeks time.
“We need to keep pushing, we are making steps forward and hopefully we will be even better in Brazil.”
Team principal Frédéric Vasseur said there is a lot the team can from the weekend, regardless of whether they scored any points or not.
“The results may say we finish this race outside of the top ten, but we can at least point to many positives. We looked a lot more competitive compared to the previous rounds and we were able to be in the fight for a points finish for most of the afternoon.
“We move on to the final two races of the season aware that a lot of work is still ahead of us, but knowing we are moving in the right direction,” Vasseur concluded.
