Alfa Romeo hopes for wet race

Both Alfa Romeo drivers have made it to the second part of qualifying, the team is happy with the results of the day and tomorrow they hope for rain…

Frederic Vasseur, team leader: “Today we were again convinced of the high density of results in the middle group of teams – only the tenth was not enough for Valtteri to get into the final. I’m very happy for Zhou – for the first time he spoke on a difficult Japanese track, he did a great job.

Yes, we would like to compete in the top ten, but we are looking forward to tomorrow’s race with optimism – you can overtake in Suzuka, we have a fast race pace and good chances to earn points with two cars.

One of the factors will be the weather, but yesterday we were fast on a wet track so the rain could help. We will fight and do everything we can to earn points.”

Valtteri Bottas (12th): “We tried our best, but it wasn’t enough to make it to the final. I did well on both attempts in the second session and ended up losing less than the tenth, again speaking of the density of results in the middle group. But we start close to the top ten and tomorrow we will fight for the points.

It’s not clear yet what the weather will be like tomorrow, but on Friday we were competitive on the wet track, so I would even prefer rain – that could help us bounce back.”

Guanyu Zhou (14th): “I’m quite happy with the result, bearing in mind that I only have one dry session to prepare for qualifying. We progressed as the day went on, we were close to reaching the qualifying final – I did everything I could.

We hope for points. If the race turns out to be rainy, that will only increase our chances. The race has to be interesting.”