Frédéric Vasseur felt the Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN team did not demonstrate the full potential of their C41-Ferrari during Qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix on Saturday, which leaves the drivers sixteenth and seventeenth on the grid.
Kimi Räikkönen was closest in getting through to Q2 at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, but the Finn was unable to find the few tenths of a second that would have taken him through at the expense of Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso.
Team-mate Antonio Giovinazzi will start seventeenth, with the Italian losing the chance of attacking for one more lap at the end of Q1 after having his lap ruined by the actions of Uralkali Haas F1 Team’s Nikita Mazepin heading into the Tamburello chicane.
Vasseur, the Team Principal at Alfa Romeo and the CEO of Sauber Motorsport AG, openly admitted that the result of Qualifying was not as the team had hoped or expected it to be, especially with the kind of pace the team showed during practice on Saturday.
He knows it will be difficult to recover from near the back of the grid, but they will be doing all they can to move forward and possible fight for a top ten result on Sunday.
“Today’s result is not what we aimed for, especially after the good performance we delivered yesterday,” said Vasseur. “We were just not able to demonstrate the full potential of our car.
“Starting where we are won’t make our job easier, but we know we can compete against many of the cars ahead of us and we will do our best to make up on the ground we lost today.”
