After both cars looked in a good place before qualifying of the Austrian Grand Prix, it is understandable that Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN leave qualifying feeling that they had more to give, Kimi Räikkönen will start the Grand Prix in eighteenth place and Antonio Giovinazzi will start in fifteenth place.
As per usual, ‘the iceman’ Kimi Räikkönen was a man of few words but the few words that he did use clearly showed the Fins disappointment in not being able to hook a lap together and ultimately in a hyper-competitive sport like Formula 1 starting low down will always be the result.
There are plenty of heavy-breaking zones at the Red Bull Ring where overtaking is possible so hopefully Räikkönen can make the best of a bad situation.
“I didn’t manage to make one good lap and this is the end result. It’s not what we want, of course, but that’s how it is. It’s not going to be easy to start where we are but we’ll see tomorrow what we can make of it.”
Giovinazzi Remaining Optimistic At A Track Where Overtaking Is Possible
After being quietly confident coming into qualifying with an eleventh place finish in Free Practice 3, fifteenth is not what the Italian and the team had been hoping for. After having a really strong Friday but the other teams have seemed to found a little bit more than the Swiss-based team.
“We were quite confident coming into today so P15 is not really what we expected. We had a really strong Friday but today the other teams seem to have found a little bit more than us. I put together a good lap but unfortunately that was not enough to get into Q3.”
Despite this, Giovinazzi is still optimistic to see what he can do during the race and will be hoping to score a second points finish of the season at a track where overtaking is possible. There is even the possibility of bad weather which could throw another spanner into the works.
“I’m still optimistic for tomorrow, though: our race pace didn’t look bad yesterday and this is a track where you can overtake. We need to focus on the race, see what weather we’re going to get. We know we can get close to the top ten and fight for points.”
