First issue for Alfa Romeo since Canada

(Motorsport-Total.com) — After Alfa Romeo’s strong start to the season, things had calmed down since the Canadian Grand Prix. While Valtteri Bottas struggled from one grid penalty to the next and had major problems with reliability, his teammate Guanyue Zhou was able to score a point with a tenth-place finish for Alfa Romeo in Italy.

Before that, you had a total of six races in a row without a point, with Zhou also benefiting from multiple grid penalties and the failures of Fernando Alonso and Daniel Ricciardo at Monza.

“I’m very happy with the result because it’s been a rough road since Montreal because we were very strong at the start of the season and then our performance fell,” said the Chinese after a top 10 result in Italy.

Zhou: Williams is too fast on the straight

Zhou continued, “Coming back on point is a great feeling and a great result for the team. We knew we had a chance today, our pace was good and it gave us the opportunity to keep up with the other teams.”

Alfa Romeo’s pace was good, also demonstrated by the fact that Zhou was able to persist in the DRS move, triggered by Daniel Ricciardo, and sometimes on the verge of overtaking Nyck de Vries in front of him . Williams is in ninth place.

,[Mit dem DRS-Zug] We calculated in advance, so that in the end it would be too much of a default with Drs. Once Nyck was out of the DRS, I had a good chance, but it was clear that Williams was going to be difficult to overtake at his top speed.”

More points for Alfa Romeo soon?

Team owner Frederic Vasseur also strikes a positive balance after race weekend at Monza: “We had a great weekend as a team and the point we brought home with Zhou is a huge reward.”

“We had a good pace from Friday, even in Q1 where Zhou was P6, but we had to [im Rennen] Still get the job done. We fought well in midfield, even though it was difficult to overtake, and made no mistake with Zhou, allowing us to maximize our yield from the race.”

“Unfortunately, Valtteri became [Bottas’] The damage to them at the start interrupts the day, but the most important thing is our performance: if we keep it going over the next few races we can try to collect more points.”

Zhou is hoping for a double header in Asia

Zhou now looks forward to the next two races in Singapore and Japan, especially given their geographical proximity to his native China: “We have a couple of weeks off now, which gives us time to rest and most of all. Importantly analyzes after the triple. What worked header this weekend and what went wrong in recent races.”

“We want to be ready and motivated for the next race. I look forward to the doubleheader in Asia because the race will be closer to my home and many fans will come to support me.”