Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN will have a challenge on its hands in tomorrow’s Monaco Grand Prix, after qualifying in P12 with Valtteri Bottas and P20 with Zhou Guanyu. A chaotic Saturday afternoon session, strewn with red flags and incidents, means the team will need a strong comeback in tomorrow’s race.
Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal: “Today’s result falls short of our expectations, and our first objective will be to understand the reasons for it. Qualifying was a messy session in which some episodes went against us, but at the same time we were not as competitive as we hoped we would be.Zhou was meters away from setting a really good time in Q1 when the red flag was thrown, invalidating his lap;at the restart, we were bottled behind a queue of cars and that prevented him from having another Valtteri suffered the same situation, but was able to clear Q1: in Q2, he delivered a good lap, but P12 was the maximum we could achieve. Of course, these are not ideal places to start, especially in Monaco, but it’s going to be a long race tomorrow and we’ll give everything to move up.”
Valtteri Bottas: “We did not expect to miss out on Q3, but we turned out to be not as competitive as we expected. Despite missing a session yesterday, I feel I managed to get into a good rhythm: the car was balanced and felt good, the last lap in Q2 was really good as well. I think we probably got as much as we could: we lacked a bit of pace, not in any particular corner but overall. It’s disappointing as we thought this would be a strong track for us, but we’re still not far off the points: it’s going to be a long day tomorrow, with the threat of rain as well, so everything can happen. Hopefully we can put up a good fight and bring home another top ten finish.”
Zhou Guanyu: “It’s a very frustrating and disappointing result: the red flag coming out just seconds before I finished my lap meant I was the only one who couldn’t set a time with the second set of tires and, on a street circuit like Monaco, with strong track evolution, I never stood a chance with the first lap. The slow exit from the pit lane of the cars in front of me when we got a green flag again meant I couldn’t get another attempt and that was it. It hasn’t been the smoothest weekend so far, but I am confident we can get together and figure out a way forward with the team.We’re going to put our heads down and do our best for tomorrow’s race.The weather could play a part, so we’ll go out and try to salvage a good result.”
Check out our Saturday gallery from Monaco, here.
