Frédéric Vasseur admits the most important result of Sunday’s British Grand Prix was seeing Zhou Guanyu emerge unhurt after a horror crash at turn one on lap one at Silverstone.
The Chinese driver was pitched into a terrifying roll by Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team’s George Russell, with Zhou’s car going through the gravel trap upside down before it was launched over the tyre barrier and into the catch fencing.
Vasseur, the Team Principal of Zhou at Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN, says the safety improvements made by the FIA in recent years paid off at Silverstone and enabled his driver to escape the huge crash without any injury.
“I think we can all agree that the most important thing today is seeing Zhou come out of such a huge crash without any injury,” said Vasseur. “What we witnessed were dramatic scenes, and once again we have to thank the great improvements in safety spearheaded by the FIA and Formula 1 for a positive outcome.
“The work to improve safety in our sport is never done and today reminds us of just how important this is: Zhou is ok and fit to race in Austria next week, and this is the big victory of the day.”
Overall, it was a difficult day for Alfa Romeo at Silverstone, with Valtteri Bottas joining Zhou in retirement late in the race with a suspected gearbox problem.
However, Vasseur says the pace of the C42-Ferrari during the weekend gives them hope they can return to the points in Austria this weekend.
“Overall, we had a tough race in which we also lost Valtteri with a gearbox issue, when he was running in P8 and eyeing a really strong result,” he said. “It’s a shame to miss out on the opportunity to score points, but this is racing.
“We can take comfort from the pace we showed while we were in the race: we can look with optimism to next week’s event in Austria.”
