Alessandro Alunni Bravi says the outcome of the Spanish Grand Prix showed that Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake are ready to fight from lights out to chequered flag and for every single tenth of a second as Zhou Guanyu scored only their third top ten finish of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season.
Zhou finished on the road in tenth but was promoted to ninth courtesy of a time penalty handed out to Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda for forcing the Chinese driver off the track at turn one as the two battled for position.
It was not as good a result for Valtteri Bottas as the Finn struggled to nineteenth after taking early damage to his floor, perhaps after running over debris on the opening lap.
However, Alunni Bravi, the Team Representative at Alfa Romeo, says the team had a solid race overall, with good calls from the pit wall complementing strong drives on track.
“Today, we showed that we’re ready to fight for every single lap, every single tenth of a second on track,” said Alunni Bravi. “We have shown that, working together with determination and as a team, we can deliver the result we all, and our drivers, deserve.
“The field is very close, we saw that today: every thousandth of a second matters so we need to be aggressive, have a results-driven mentality. We had a hard fight on track with the Haas, the Alpines, the AlphaTauris and to come out of this with points is a very positive result.
“Zhou drove very well, pushing every lap and working with the team on how to improve his performance. He is making good progress: especially after a tough weekend in Monaco, he showed the ability to bounce back with confidence and the points he scored are a good reward.
“Valtteri suffered a difficult Saturday, and today he suffered damage to his car that dashed any hope of a comeback. He will get back stronger in Montreal.
“We had a strong race as a team, with the right strategy calls from the pit-wall and good execution. The team worked really hard and we’re grateful for their effort: the last few weeks haven’t been easy but we knew we would get back.”
Alunni Bravi says Alfa Romeo, as well as engine partners Ferrari, will continue to fight for every position, and he is confident that everyone has the potential and ability to maximise across every race weekend.
“We keep fighting, together with our partners Ferrari, that have helped us to today’s result,” he added. “We had reasonable pace throughout the weekend and we confirmed that the good things we showed in practice were not a fluke.
“We saw that our race pace is better than our qualifying pace, which is something we will address as a priority as we aim for another step forward ahead of Montreal.
“There’s no time to sit down now, there’s work to be done every day both trackside and in Hinwil, and we have full confidence in our ability to deliver.”
