Guillaume Dezoteux, the Head of Vehicle Performance at Scuderia AlphaTauri, was disappointed to see the team fail to score points during Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix, with circumstances appearing to go against the team at the Suzuka International Racing Course.
Pierre Gasly’s race was compromised early by picking up damage after hitting an advertising board that had been brought onto the track after Carlos Sainz Jr. crashed. AlphaTauri gambled on pitting the Frenchman a second time to try and benefit from fresh intermediate tyres, but he ended down in seventeenth at the chequered flag, which became eighteenth when he was handed a time penalty post-race for speeding under the early red flag.
AlphaTauri also pitted Yuki Tsunoda for a second time to try and use better tyres to clear the traffic that had built up behind Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi, but the Japanese driver ran out of time to make the strategy work and ended only thirteenth.
Dezoteux hopes AlphaTauri can have better races across the remainder of the season, with the next race coming at the Circuit of the Americas in two weeks’ time.
“It’s been a difficult Sunday for us, and we didn’t manage to get points today in Suzuka,” said Dezoteux. “Starting from the pitlane, Pierre was able to catch the pack immediately, but got hit by a panel that was broken during the crash of Carlos. This broke his front wing and front wheel winglet, however we were able to repair this during the red flag period.
“At the restart visibility was very bad, but the track grip was good enough to get on Inters straight away and gain on the cars that stayed on Wets. The degradation increased fast, and we decided to stop again, which unfortunately wasn’t enough to pass the group of cars in front of Pierre.
“With regards to Yuki’s race, it started pretty well by gaining positions before the red flag. Then, he lost a bit of time behind Norris on his first stint. We decided to also stop him for a second set of Inters to attack the group of cars held by Latifi.
“Yuki did a number of nice overtakes and made his way through the field, but it wasn’t enough to get to the points today sadly. We hope for better in the next races.”
