Feature

Team Talk - Sunday in Zandvoort

Alfa Romeo


Valtteri Bottas
"First and foremost, I am really glad to see Zhou is ok after his crash. Every chaotic race is an opportunity, and I feel we weren't able to really make the most of it today. We had a really good start, making up a lot of positions, and, when the rain came, we kept it on track, which was not easy in such challenging conditions. The grip out there was very poor and visibility limited, which on such a technical track is making driving even harder. In the end, we just did not have the pace to be in the points, especially in regular circumstances. We need to understand what went on and improve on it, I know everyone is working hard for it. Next up is Monza: it's an important race for us, on a completely different track, and we can surely do better than this. There will be a lot of people from our factory on the stands, and we're looking forward to all the support."

Zhou Guanyu
"Finishing the race in the barrier is never nice: I am not injured, which is the most important thing, but I'm disappointed as we were doing a decent race until then. The downpour was very sudden and it was a tricky moment for me: I was one of the first on the scene at turn one, I wasn't pushing given the conditions, but as soon as I touched the brakes the car aquaplaned. There was nothing I could really do, I couldn't scrub any speed and I just went straight into the barriers. Before that, it had been a busy race in which we spent a lot of time in good positions. We were quite strong in the wet, but as soon as it got dry, we didn't really have the pace to stay in the top ten. The Safety Car didn't help us either: we were on medium tyres, hoping to go long, but as soon as the race was neutralised, we ended up among those on soft tyres, and it was not possible to keep them behind. We move on to Monza now, an important race for us: hopefully we can have a better outcome."

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, team representative
"This race marks the end of a difficult weekend for the team. We were not competitive in qualifying or the race, and this was the key element on which we will need to focus. The team tried everything: we made some good strategic calls in the changing conditions and put ourselves in a good position with Zhou. We tried the opposite strategy with Valtteri, leaving him out on dry tyres, in order to cover all scenarios. Our mechanics did a good job, managing all the pit-stops in difficult conditions. Unfortunately, in the end there was just not enough pace in the car, and when conditions returned to normal, we were not able to remain in the points. Zhou's crash was a big impact, but thankfully he was able to walk away with no injury. We're not letting our head drop: we'll just keep working hard to improve our performance and move forward, starting next weekend in Monza."

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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.

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