Comunicato STELLANTIS
Singapore, 2 October 2022 – Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN endured a tough weekend in Singapore, as Valtteri Bottas brought his C42 home in 11th place after a damp-to-dry race on the Marina Bay circuit. Team-mate, Zhou Guanyu, saw his evening end early as he was the victim of a collision with Nicholas Latifi, the resulting damage putting the Chinese driver out of the running.
Despite the difficult race, the team maintains its sixth position in the Constructors’ Championship with 52 points.
Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal: “It has been a difficult weekend, despite the good pace we showed on Friday. Yesterday’s wet qualifying ended up compromising our day, as it was always going to be challenging to come back from 14th and 15th on the grid. The race itself was not easy, especially on a damp track: Zhou couldn’t do anything to avoid being taken out when he was showing good pace; Valtteri probably got as much out of the race as possible, and it was only a fast-charging Verstappen who kept him out of the points in the end. We tried giving him a fighting chance with the soft tyres, but in the end that was not enough to finish in the top ten. We move on to Suzuka now, knowing our pace in the dry was ok and that we will be introducing some updates that should give us a boost in performance. We keep fighting to preserve P6 in the championship.”
Valtteri Bottas (car number 77):
Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN C42 (Chassis 01/Ferrari)
Race result: 11th
Fastest lap: 1:51.864 (Lap 52)
Tyres: New Inter (33 laps) – New Soft (26 laps)
“Considering where we started today, we probably got as much as we could. Of course, it’s always frustrating when you finish just one position away from the points, but at least we avoided any mistakes and kept it on track. Towards the end, the soft tyres were starting to drop and I couldn’t close in on Gasly, but I think it was a good call to try going with them in the second stint today: I don’t think any other compound would have given us a better result. We can still take a few positives from the weekend: we showed good pace on Friday, and we have some upgrades coming to Japan; our car has proved to be working a bit better in dry conditions, so let’s hope for favourable weather in Suzuka to kick back right away.”
Zhou Guanyu (car number 24):
Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN C42 (Chassis 03/Ferrari)
Race result: DNF
Fastest lap: 2:05.556 (Lap 5)
Tyres: New Inter (6 laps)
“It’s disappointing to finish a race with such a crash, there was not much I could do. I was side-by-side with Latifi in turn four, and he decided to fully close the space and put me into the wall. The damage to the suspension was terminal, he got a penalty for this incident but it’s not going to change much for me. It was not what we wanted, and it’s especially annoying as I think we had a decent pace. We just move on from today and shift our focus to Suzuka: it’s a new chance for us to do well and I am looking forward to racing on that track.”
