Qualifying in Sao Paulo, which took place in changeable weather conditions, was unsuccessful for Alfa Romeo: Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou dropped out in the first session.
Frederic VasseurTeam leader: “If you show a normal pace during practice, as we did, then you don’t expect it to stop for both cars in the first part of qualifying at all.
Unfortunately we were unable to take advantage of the changeable weather conditions and paid for it. It’s a shame we missed this opportunity, but there is only one consolation: on Saturday there will be a sprint race, and we will try to earn back.
On the Brazilian circuit it was always possible to overtake and if we can show the pace again that we showed in training, there is still a chance to improve the situation.
Valtteri Bottas (18th): “The result is disappointing, especially after we looked pretty good in training. But during the first qualifying session we decided to stay on intermediate tires and that was the wrong choice. When I got back to the pits I saw that the Williams driver was having a hard time keeping the car on track when he was running on slicks, so we decided to stay on intermediate tyres.
When we realized we had to switch to Soft, I returned to the pits, but two laps were not enough to warm up the tires to the desired temperature. And yet nothing is lost: there are still two days of the weekend ahead of us, and in both there is an opportunity to earn points. As we are able to ride a fast pace on a dry track, we still have a chance to show a good result.”
Guanyu Zhou (17th): “In the beginning everything went well, especially when you consider that the track was very slippery. Unfortunately we probably went to the pits a few laps later than necessary, after which I only managed one fast lap on the slicks.
Of course it’s a shame that we missed less than two tenths before the second session, because if we could do at least one more lap, we could certainly show a better result.
We felt we had speed and I put in a good lap on the soft tires so it’s all the more disappointing that we missed a better result. However, I hope we can recover on Saturday and improve our starting position for Sunday’s race.”
Source: F1 News
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