The second season review will be for Alfa Romeo and you can read the previous review for Haas F1 here.
Preseason
2020 was not a great year for Alfa Romeo as they finished 9th in the constructors’ championship due to the weaker Ferrari engine.
Ferrari had produced a better engine for 2021 than it did in 2020. It wasn’t top of the line compared to the rest of the field, but it was a solid improvement. Alfa Romeo was secretly confident that they would fight in midfield again. Tests seemed to show this as the Alfa circled the rear midfield. With a little luck you can fight for good points.
Alfa Romeo has had financial difficulties in recent years. The team hoped that with some stability, reasonable results and a chance for progress would be achieved.
There were question marks whether Kimi Raikkonen was 42 years old. Many people felt that he had lost his raw speed and it became a big debate whether he was just not fast enough anymore. Alfa had a seasonal contract with him and has respected his feedback in developing the car. That meant that Kimi would at least be there for the whole season.
With more stability and an improved engine compared to last year, Alfa was able to consolidate 9th place in the championship and possibly 8th place with a little luck.
The season
The season definitely fell short of expectations. It was clear from the start that they had taken a step forward in terms of being behind pole. The car wasn’t what the team was hoping for.
Before the season it was all about the fight for a Q3 place. In reality, it was a struggle for them to get out of Q1. George Russell got his slower Williams out of Q1 more often than any of the Alfa drivers over the course of the season.
It may seem like just the drivers were too slow, but that’s not exactly the case.
Williams’ car was much better in qualifying than it was in the race. The Alfa seemed to be better in the race than in qualifying. At the end of the race, the drivers were usually ahead of the Williams and could fight with the faster midfield teams.
Qualifying hurt them the most. The positions they could win in a race would not result in them being in scoring at the checkered flag.
In the third slowest car, drivers did not light the timing screens. But when there were opportunities to score, there were often strategic mistakes by the team or the drivers that resulted in no points being scored.
Incidents like invoking the wrong strategy for their drivers hurt them very much.
In Imola, the team gave Kimi incorrect information about their position under the safety car. At the restart he started in the wrong position and was punished by the stewards. Falling from a scoring position to out of scoring.
Races like Hungary, where Williams scored double points, should have been cheaper for Alfa. However, Kimi was uncertainly released into the pit lane, collided with Mazepin and incurred a penalty. Antonio Giovinazzi was caught too quickly in the pit lane and received a penalty. All of this kept the cars behind and prevented them from challenging with the pace they had shown in the pre-season tests.
Driver changes
In the middle of the season, Kimi announced that he would be retiring at the end of the season. His resignation was not unexpected, but it sparked a number of driver moves.
Valterri Bottas should take the place at Alfa and thus practically become the new top driver. George Russell was to leave Williams for Mercedes and Alex Albon signed for Williams.
Many rumors remained about Antonio and the other seat at Alfa as he had no contract for 2022.
Towards the end of the year, Alfa decided not to renew Antonio’s contract. He was quite upset and posted about it on social media, claiming that it was money talking in sports and that was why Alfa had replaced him with Guanyu Zhou.
Antonio had an average season. He got more points than Kimi and had a couple of good qualifying sessions, but he made a lot of mistakes. In the end, his argument about staying wasn’t that strong.
Zhou comes from China with considerable support. People wondered if F1 would want him there as they are planning a second race in China. But non-front-running teams like Alfa take into account the sponsorship money the drivers bring with them. Zhou also finished 3rd in the F2 championship with a string of wins and pole positions. Zhou is not just a paid driver, he clearly has some pace and deserves a chance.
Overall, the season was a failure for Alfa Romeo. Luck seemed to like Williams at times, but the Alfa team made too many mistakes together.
Next season
Alfa Romeo are another team that are targeting the regulatory changes for next year to take a big step up the grid. They also hope the cost cap can help them. In recent years Alfa has had one of the smallest budgets on the net, but plans to increase it over the next few years.
Zhou’s money can help with this, but they also hope they have a talented young driver who can push the car for good results while studying. In Bottas they have a proven race winner. He couldn’t match Lewis Hamilton’s consistency in the Mercedes, but he remains one of the best drivers out there. It was crucial for Toto Wolff’s team to win five design engineering titles in a row. His experience will be very valuable and will help you develop the car.
Without the pressure from the top team, Bottas hopes to show the pace he had at Williams that earned him the seat at Mercedes.
The goal for next year is probably the same as for this year, one more step forward and trying to get back 8th in the Constructors’ Championship with some outstanding performances.
Highlights
There weren’t many. The potential highlights have usually been where they expected at the start of the season.
Antonio’s qualifying in Monza and Zandvoort was outstanding, he achieved an impressive 7th place on both tracks. Unfortunately, round 1 incidents left him back in the field and out of the points in both cases.
Lows
As the season fell short of expectations, there were only a few individual lows.
Hungary was definitely a low point. Mistakes made by the drivers and the team, all of which were avoidable, meant that a clear point chance was lost.
The last race in Abu Dhabi was also disappointing. It was the last race for both of the team’s drivers. It was also the end of Kimi’s breathtaking careers, but unfortunately both of them had to give up the race.
In other news, F2 lineup update
Main Image Source: Embedding Getty Images
