Feature

Team Talk - Sunday in Jeddah

40

Alfa Romeo

Antonio Giovinazzi
“I am really happy with tonight’s race – not just the result, but the performance as a whole. We were strong in qualifying yesterday already, and today we managed to keep out of trouble in the chaos: we always made some gain in the starts and we had the pace to keep in the top ten, even though at the end the two Ferraris were just too quick for us. It was a tough race, very physical – it reminded me of Singapore at times, with the heat and humidity – but in the end we have a good reward to show for it. We finished so many times just outside the points, in P11, so to have a ninth place feels really deserved. I am looking forward to Abu Dhabi and to fight for another good result to close the season well.”

Kimi Raikkonen
“It was a hectic race, especially with all the restarts and the first laps. Our pace was not too bad and we could have fought for the points, but once I picked up damage in the contact with Vettel, it was really difficult. There wasn’t much in it, we were going side by side, I tried to make the corner but we touched. That ruined my race completely, there was no way back from there.”

Frédéric Vasseur, team principal
“First of all, what a great show tonight was, what an ad for our sport. In this incredible new venue, we delivered a strong race to bring home two points thanks to Antonio’s great performance. It’s a good reward after we’ve been on pace all weekend, straight from FP1: we knew we had the speed but we still had a big job ahead of us to deliver it, keeping clear of the chaos and making sure we extracted everything we could from our package. We had two cars running in the points at one stage and, even though Kimi dropped out of the battle after contact with Vettel, Antonio was able to run as high as seventh for most of the race. To finish right behind two Ferraris and hold a McLaren at bay was the most we could do so we can be pleased with our performance. It’s a confidence boost ahead of the final race, let’s finish the season well now.”

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.