F1 | Azerbaijan GP | Xevi Pujolar on Alfa grabbing points, Raikkonen's strong middle stint and the decision to do a standing restart
MotorLAT and other selected media had a private media session with Xevi Pujolar, F1 Head of Trackside Engineering of Alfa Romeo Racing about the chaotic Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
After the chaotic Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which concluded with a podium full of fresh emotions of joy and big disappointments, MotorLAT has been invited with a small amount of other selected media to join a media session with F1 Head of Trackside Engineering of Alfa Romeo Racing Xevi Pujolar.
We talked about all the innovations that will take place in Formula 1 and his impressions on the race that just took place.
“Today we had a very good result, we can feel proud of it – Pujolar said, telling us how he and Alfa Romeo ORLEN Racing team welcomed today’s placements – Our drivers set in P10 Kimi and P11 Antonio, it shows an improvement and we want to keep racing this way.”
At this point, MotorLAT wanted to know how the team dealt with FIA’s decision to restart and complete the race after the red flag, and if he would have preferred a standing restart or a safety car restart, if he had had the power to decide.
“I would have behaved just like FIA did – the Spaniard stated – because it is always a good option to complete a race if it’s possible. Would I preferred a standing restart or a safety car one? Once again, I am content with the decision taken. We had a good result, two cars in P10 and P11 is a great finish for us, it all went good. I also think it’s a good thing to have allowed the teams to switch the tyres before a restart.”
WHAT AN END! We bring home 1 point ☝🏻
— Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN (@alfaromeoracing) June 6, 2021
RAI ➡️ P10
GIO ➡️ P11#AzerbaijanGP pic.twitter.com/MPWIQTfUK0
The next question was about Red Bull and Aston Martin’s technical debacle and what could have happened to them in his expert engineer’s eyes.
“I don’t know, exactly – he said – when something goes wrong, you have to analyse the car and the data, so I don’t know what could have happened in others cars.”
And what does he think about flexible wings? Will the French GP tests put a stop to these discussions or will they go on.
“I honestly think that flexible wings don’t make any difference but the discussions will go on for a little while. There is no problem for us, though. It doesn’t make any difference.”
Let’s put a highlight on drivers: Raikkonen proved once again his racing instinct but he outqualified Giovinazzi only for the second time in nine events. MotorLAT would like to know if he thinks that this could be more related to the Italian’s big improvement since middle 2020 or if the Finn is struggling on Saturday afternoon in finding the car and tyres’ sweet spot.
“Yesterday in qualifying, Kimi was okay. We didn't have enough soft tyres [in Q2] because of the red flags; we used everything in Q1 [and] Kimi did a reasonable Q2. I think his performance was okay in qualifying and in the race he was strong in the middle stint as well. He was well-positioned.
