After a promising performance in Brazil, Alfa Romeo Racing finished the season out of the points as Kimi Räikkönen finished in thirteenth and Antonio Giovinazzi took sixteenth at the 2019 Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, missing out due to the tight midfield battle in the race.
The new paring for the season saw the team take eighth in the constructors’ standings, repeating last years feat as Sauber.
Giovinazzi finished his rookie F1 season in seventeenth with fourteen points and his teammate Räikkönen, finished up in twelfth with forty-three points on the board.
Räikkönen spoke on his race, as he finished down in thirteenth and failed to secure points.
“We did all we could today, so we can keep our head high. Our race pace was better than what we showed in the rest of the weekend and we were in the middle of a few interesting battles. We fought for the points and thought we could get them, but in the end we fell a bit short.“
Räikkönen went on to speak about what would happen after the race as he will take part in the 2019 Abu Dhabi Pirelli Tyre Test.
“Now we’ll have a day off, then some testing and the season will finally be over. We learnt a lot from this one and we can use it to improve for next year. It’s impossible to guess where we will be, but we want to come back stronger. We made some steps forward this season but we want more.”
Giovinazzi spoke on his race, explaining similar to his teammate, that he fought to get into the points but the tight midfield meant they could not finish the season in the points.
“We fought to have a good result today but we didn’t manage to finish the season with a point. We tried a different strategy as we had to take our chances, starting from the back, although this gamble didn’t pay off. It’s been a season in which I learnt a lot of lessons: it will all help me when I get back to the start line in Melbourne.”
Giovinazzi went over his year, saying he has definitely improved as a driver, explaining he has got a lot stronger in qualifying and his racing.
“I am happy of the way I improved during the year, both in qualifying and the race, and I am looking forward to taking the next step forward. We will work hard this winter, understand where we can improve and do our best to have an even better season in 2020.”
