After a lackluster past few races, Alfa Romeo aims to return to the top-ten next weekend at Silverstone, with the help of an upgrade package that it will introduce on its C43 machine.
So far, the Hinwil squad has only scored points in four of the nine races held this season, with the team running well behind the top-ten in Austria last weekend.
Alfa also lost a spot in F1's Constructors' standings at the Red Bull Ring, having been pushed down to P8 in the standings by Haas following Nico Hulkenberg's run to sixth in Saturday's Sprint event.
But the arrival of a significant update that will hopefully improve the performance of its C43 is cause for optimism at the Swiss outfit.
"We are bringing a new, important package to Silverstone, on which the team back at base in Hinwil has been working hard over the past months, and it’ll hopefully help us make our way back to the top ten," commented Alfa team managing director Alessandro Alunni Bravi.
"We have seen how upgrades have been fundamental for our main competitors to make a step forward: that will be our main aim, for the second leg of this back-to-back.
"We remain confident, and eager to show that Austria just wasn’t our weekend, but we still have it in us to battle through the field – and promptly change the tide again."
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Zhou Guanyu believes that the slow development pace of Alfa's contender has been the main factor weighing on the team's results this season.
"Compared to a lot of the bigger teams they obviously can bring multiple upgrades if one doesn't work and for us, we have to kind of stick to what we've got, before we planned the season," he said.
"Of course, we're trying our hardest but it's not easy, and let's say it's been a few more difficult weekends for the team.
"Everyone is obviously bringing upgrades and we're talking about not even tenths or one hundredths, we're talking about thousandths.
"I missed Q2 two times over like 0.006s in total over two laps."
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Alfa's weakness this season has centered around its car's lack of grip and downforce. The margins are tight in F1's midfield, but Alfa's head of trackside engineering Xevi Pujolar is confident that the team's upcoming package will carry it back to at leas P7.
"Everything is very tight," said the Spaniard, quoted by Motorsport.com. "From race to race, it can go either towards one side or another side. Here, it was not enough for us to fight for the points.
"Part of it is because of our qualifying performance is something that still we need to focus on to improve. But we've now got a few days, we've got some new parts coming for Silverstone.
"We want to recover as soon as possible the P7 in the championship and keep fighting."
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