Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal of Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN is happy with the Italian Grand Prix weekend as Guanyu Zhou secures a tenth place finish – the team’s first point since the Canadian Grand Prix. Despite a grid penalty and an early race collision for Valtteri Bottas, Vasseur believes the performance over the weekend was strong, and hopes to earn more points in the upcoming races.
“We had a positive weekend as a team, and the point we brought home with Zhou is a good reward. We had pace from Friday onwards, including in Q1 where Zhou was in P6, but we still had to get the job done today. We fought well in the midfield, even though overtaking was hard, and didn’t really do mistakes with Zhou so we could maximise our returns from the race,” the Frenchman explained.
Bottas’ early-race collision was at the narrow Turn One chicane of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, where he hit the back of Kevin Magnussen, before being hit behind from Mick Schumacher in the other Haas F1 Team car. The Finn says that the car went into anti-stall, which cost him some places at the start, as well as the damage sustained to the front wing.
“Unfortunately, Valtteri’s day was compromised by the damage he suffered at the start, but the key takeaway here is our performance: if we carry it over to the next rounds, we can aim to bring home more points to our name,” Vasseur concluded.
The Italian Grand Prix was a good race for Guanyu Zhou, who scored his first points in seven races during a late-race battle with Mick Schumacher.
