F1 | Mexico GP | Giovinazzi "very disappointed" at team's race strategy after finishing P11 at Mexico City
While he's fighting to maintain his F1 career at the only seat on the grid yet to be confirmed, Antonio Giovinazzi expressed how the team's race strategy ruin his possibility of a good result last weekend at México City.
While Kimi Raikkonen took the checkered flag at the Mexican GP with a strong performance that made him achieve a final position of P8, Antonio Giovinazzi failed on the mission to score points and so, therefore, help his team to close the gap to P8 on the championship.
The Italian expressed his frustration with a sarcastic post-race radio message saying “Hey guys, thanks for the great strategy” after a frustrating Sunday and result at Mexico City, facts that are not helping Giovinazzi’s race to keep his seat in the category, as rumors point out that Vasseur has said the Alfa Romeo driver that will pair Valtteri Bottas on 2022 will be announced the Tuesday after the Brazilian GP, in a week’s time.
“I'm just really disappointed because today we had the chance to score points with two cars,” Giovinazzi said.
“But on my side, the strategy was completely wrong. We pitted too early, but I don't think was the issue. The issue was that when I came out, I was in traffic. And the strategy didn't work. So, yeah, just really disappointed,” the Italian expressed after the race.
After a great first lap where he succeeded to get up good positions, Giovinazzi managed to be 6th for a few laps in the race and then stayed in a good P7 that looked promising just before the team called him to pit and so the stop dropped him to race behind Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo.
“I think today, Kimi stayed P8 and I was P7 at that moment, so disappointing because the team didn't score as much as possible. And this is really hard for myself as well. But it’s like this.”
“It was just a great first lap, but in the end, it didn't do anything for my end result. So good first lap, just disappointed with the situation.”
Alfa Romeo’s Team Principal explained to the media why the decision to pit car #99 didn’t work. For the former Sauber team, the main aim is to beat Williams in the constructors’ standings and take P8 from the English team.
“We were very surprised with the pace of Ricciardo and Bottas, and then we were stuck behind them, which was a bit a shame because he did a great job,” Vasseur told autosport.com
“In terms of pure performance, we did a step forward,” he said. “When the weekends are going well, we are able to score good points. Now for sure if you have a look at the season, we missed too many opportunities.”
MotorLat was in a press conference for selected media with Alfa Romeo’s Head of Trackside Engineering Xevi Pujolar. The Spaniard explained what led the team to decide the strategy that, according to the driver, cost Giovinazzi scoring more points for the team.
“I think all the weekend was good. With everyone getting penalties it was good to start 10th and 11th. At one point Antonio struggled with the rears and as we were looking to Ricciardo and Bottas we decided to box Antonio.”
“At that point when we reacted we boxed behind two fast cars, we didn't expect these two cars to stay so long ahead of us. It was not good but at the time we didn't know.”
Finally, when asked by MotorLat if the Italian is making progress at this stage of the season, Pujolar said: "Yes we think he's making progress, for sure. He's getting confidence in qualifying and in the race."
