Frédéric Vasseur says getting both Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Räikkönen through to Q2 meant they achieved their pre-session target, and the pace the Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN team showed during Qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix meant they have made progress compared to last year.
Giovinazzi was close to making it through to the top ten shootout at the Bahrain International Circuit but was ultimately shuffled back to twelfth at the end of Q2, while Räikkönen was half a second down on his team-mate and will start fourteenth.
Vasseur, the Team Principal of Alfa Romeo and the CEO of Sauber Motorsport AG, says the result of Qualifying was a good reward for the work that has gone on during the winter, and there is a lot of hope that the team can be a much more competitive entity this year compared to 2020.
“Our target was to put both cars in Q2 and we did it,” said Vasseur. “We even got really close to the top ten and to miss out on Q3 for less than a tenth really shows the progress we have made compared to last year.
“It’s a good reward for the team after the good work put in over the winter. We have proven that our optimism after testing was well-founded and that we can be a lot more competitive this season. There’s still a lot of work to be done, however.
“We need to keep fine tuning our package to be able to be consistently in the top ten and regularly fight for points, but we have definitely made some big moves in the right direction.”
