Formula 1

AlphaTauri’s Jody Egginton: “Leaving Monaco with points is obviously good”

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Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images

Jody Egginton says Pierre Gasly scoring a sixth-place finish in the Monaco Grand Prix was a good result for Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda, but there was some disappointment that it could have been an even better finish for the Frenchman.

Gasly fended off the challenge of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s Lewis Hamilton throughout the race but both he and Hamilton lost two places during the pit stop cycle.  Whereas Sergio Pérez used expected to get ahead being in a car that was out of position on the grid, it was more disappointing for AlphaTauri to see Sebastian Vettel edge ahead when he made his pit stop.

Egginton, the Technical Director at AlphaTauri, admitted it was disappointing to see the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team driver get the jump on Gasly at the pit stop, and they will look into how they can avoid a repeat in future races.

“Leaving Monaco with points is obviously good,” said Egginton.  “However, we’re slightly disappointed that it’s not more!

“Sebastian managed to sneak in front of Pierre at the pitstop, which is quite frustrating for us, as he’d had a solid opening stint, but this is something we can go away and review as a team.”

Egginton was pleased with how Yuki Tsunoda performed in the second AT-02 at Monaco, even if the Japanese racer was unable to make any gains from his starting position.

Tsunoda faced a tough race after being eliminated in Q1 during Saturday’s Qualifying session at the Circuit de Monaco, and despite a gamble on pitting late, he was unable to finish better than sixteenth.

“Yuki’s race was fairly uneventful, given his Qualifying position it was clear his race would be heavily influenced by traffic, we tried to do something with the strategy during the race, but it was fairly straight-forward so what we could do was limited,” said Egginton.  “He drove a clean race with no mistakes and for sure has picked up experience which he will put to good use going forward.

“The package has performed reasonably well here and although the next races are quite different the expectation is that we can also be competitive in the upcoming Grands Prix.”

“I hope that we can have similar performances in the upcoming races” – Franz Tost

Franz Tost, the Team Principal at AlphaTauri, was pleased to see Gasly defend so well from Hamilton throughout the race in Monaco, even when the switch to the hard compound tyre made life more difficult for the Frenchman.

“Pierre started the race from sixth position and had a good start, defending well against Hamilton and managed his tyres in a very professional way,” said Tost.  

“We called him in for the pitstop on to the Hards and even if we struggled while bringing them to the right window, he could defend well against Hamilton.” 

Tost was also happy with how Tsunoda performed during his first-ever Monaco weekend, with his confidence growing throughout the weekend despite a crash in second practice and a disappointing Qualifying effort. 

The Team Principal acknowledged that learning how to drive at Monaco in a Formula 1 car was never going to be an easy task for the Japanese racer.

“As for Yuki, he’s never competed here in any other category, so this was his first race in Monaco, a track which is of course quite a difficult one to learn in a Formula 1 car,” said Tost.  “After showing a very good performance in FP1 he had a small accident in FP2, but he could continue to grow his confidence around the track during the Saturday morning session.

“Qualifying was more difficult for him, he lost some time with the weighbridge and wasn’t able to complete an additional lap, which meant he just missed out on Q2 by a small margin. Today he had a clean race and I’m sure he has gained a lot of experience here in Monaco, which will help him in the future.”

Tost says it was pleasing to finish sixth as it proved that AlphaTauri are beginning to return to the kind of form they started the season with back in March, and he hopes the performance levels at Monaco can translate into strong results in the upcoming races.

He also congratulated Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing for taking the victory around the principality in front of a good number of fans.

“It’s good that we finished P6 as now we’re back where we started the season and I hope that we can have similar performances in the upcoming races,” he said.

“Congratulations to Red Bull Racing, Max Verstappen and Honda for this fantastic victory here in Monaco. It was also nice to see spectators here in the grandstands, which added a good atmosphere for the race.”

Yuki Tsunoda experienced Monaco for the first time last weekend – Credit: Lars Baron/Getty Images
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