Team Talk - Sunday in Jeddah

Alfa Romeo

Valtteri Bottas
“Our qualifying performance yesterday was similar to the one we had in Bahrain, so we had good hopes for tonight, but unfortunately the race was a very different affair. The car didn’t feel right, we couldn’t get any grip from the beginning of the race and we need to figure out exactly what happened. I ran over a large piece of debris on lap one, so perhaps I was carrying some damage to the floor: we’ll look at the car and at the data and understand more to prepare for Melbourne. I believe our car is much better than what we’ve shown tonight: Zhou had a much better pace, so I don’t think this weekend was very representative, and I am confident we can be back fighting for points in Australia.”

Zhou Guanyu
“We looked strong in the first stint, our pace was good and it seemed the top ten was within reach. Of course, track position always makes the difference on street circuits like this one, and, unfortunately, I got stuck in a DRS train once the Safety Car came out. My race was compromised from that moment onwards, and there wasn’t much more we could do. Today just hasn’t been our day, but I think we can achieve much more as a team going forward. We get a new chance in a few weeks in Melbourne, where we will be bringing some upgrades to our car: hopefully they’ll allow us to make the step forward we need to continue fighting for points. We’re have shown we can do it and that we can fight towards the front, and I am confident we can achieve that again in Australia.”

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative
“Starting where we were on the grid, we were expecting to fight for the points, but, unfortunately, we weren’t able to finish in the top ten this time around. The team had a difficult weekend, and we weren’t able to be at the level for which we aimed: we’ll need to go back to base, analyse the data from this performance and understand where we’ve fallen short, and what steps we need to make to return to the level we were in Bahrain. We are confident we can make it there in Melbourne, where we will also bring some updates to further improve the performance of our C43. We need to keep working hard, of course: the season is long and the battle will be intense in each race.”