AlphaTauri
Daniel Ricciardo
"I was coming into the race optimistic. We knew we'd struggle with the race start and restarts today because we missed something here this weekend regarding tyres and getting them to work on this slippery surface when it's cold and they're new. We thought we could get them working after a couple of laps and get back onto the pack, but we never really got there. It's not an excuse, it's just something we lacked and struggled with this weekend and something we'll be looking into in our post-race analysis. There were a few cars fading at the end of the race, so we had a little more pace than them, but we still weren't a top 10 car. We're racing again next week at a medium downforce circuit, so I'm optimistic going into it. It's a quick turnaround and a different story, so the next couple of days are about resting and recovering."
Yuki Tsunoda
"We split the setup between our two cars and gambled a little with my car, but it didn't work in the end. I had a clean start today and was happy I kept out of trouble, which allowed us to gain quite a few positions, but unfortunately, we didn't have the pace to finish in the top 10. We're happy we challenged ourselves because we knew we'd struggle with our pace, so we had to try something, and I liked the challenge. Today, it didn't pay off, but in the end, it didn't matter as we had to retire my car. Looking ahead to Abu Dhabi, we'll still aim to score points. Anything can happen, so we'll try our best."
Jody Egginton, technical director
"It was a difficult race tonight with front tyre graining affecting both cars massively until the final stints, when the situation improved, and we were able to extract a slightly more representative pace from the car.
"With Yuki starting last, we gambled with the soft tyre for the race start, and initially, this worked quite well, helping him move forward to P12. However, soon after the Virtual Safety Car, the front tyre graining dramatically worsened, and we were forced to box earlier than ideal. We struggled with similar graining issues for the remainder of the race, which required quite some management. Additionally, a suspected Power Unit issue meant we had to retire the car towards the end of the race.
"Daniel's race was also affected by graining in the first stint, but some adjustments at the stop and a move to the hard compound tyre meant the graining was under control. Once the tyres were suitably far into the working range, Daniel was able to extract some better performance in the second half of the race.
"Summing up the weekend, it's frustrating not being able to get more on top of the setup requirements of this circuit and extract more performance from our car. However, tonight's race has highlighted in detail the areas of setup we need to review, and fortunately for us, Williams has not scored points, so the fight for seventh in the Constructors' Championship moves to the final race in Abu Dhabi. Theoretically, the last track of the year should suit our package better than here, so everyone's now fully focused on giving both our drivers a better car to maximise our chances of achieving this next weekend."
