Jody Egginton, the Technical Director at Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda, knew Qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was going to be tight, but the team went into the session with confidence after strong pace throughout free practice.
However, the team saw a mixed result in Qualifying on Saturday afternoon at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, with Pierre Gasly less than four-tenths of a second away from pole position in fifth and Yuki Tsunoda in the barriers early in Q1.
“The car was competitive yesterday and we’re quite happy with the developments we’ve brought to this race – there’s good speed in the car and both drivers have been getting the most from it,” said Egginton.
“This continued into FP3 today, although the field had tightened up a bit as other teams have run different strategies across Friday and Saturday, so we knew qualifying would be a close battle.”
Egginton felt Tsunoda was unfortunate to crash out of Qualifying, with the Japanese driver spinning into the barriers at the chicane and hitting the wall whilst on a lap that was likely good enough to get through into Q2. It caused a lot of damage to the AT-02 and left the team with a lot of work to do before the race.
On the other side of the garage, Gasly was once again proving himself as one to watch as he took a place on the third row of the grid, just 0.379 seconds away from Lewis Hamilton’s pole position setting time.
“Yuki was unfortunate in his Q1 run today – the lap was shaping up quite nicely, but he lost the car coming out of the chicane and hit the wall, sustaining some damage,” said Egginton. “These things happen to young drivers on their journey into F1 but he’ll bounce back from it, the most important thing is that he’s ok, and we’ll get the car fixed in time for him tomorrow.
“Pierre was a far more straightforward progression through Qualifying, without too much difficulty. He managed to complete Q1 on one set of tyres and then continued to make good use of them in Q2. Then, in his Q3 final run he was able to complete a really good lap – extracting the maximum from the car.
“Pierre’s Qualifying position is representative of where we feel the car is this weekend, we’re firmly in the midfield mix and will be fighting for good points on Sunday.”
