Alfa Romeo’s head of trackside engineering Xevi Pujolar says the team “need” to score points in this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, having taken a single point from the last eight races.
The team began the season strongly with sixth place for Valtteri Bottas and 10th for Zhou Guanyu in the Bahrain Grand Prix. That left them fourth in the constructors’ championship and they were still in the top five after seven rounds.
However with only two appearances in the points positions in the 10 grands prix since then, Alfa Romeo are now a distant sixth in the standings with three other teams seeking to overtake them. RaceFans spoke exclusively to Pujolar after last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, where the team again failed to add to its score.
“It’s true it’s not good,” Pujolar said. “But we’ve still got some margin [in the standings].”
Alfa Romeo have scored 52 points to date but Aston Martin’s best haul of the year so far in Singapore leaves them just 15 points behind. Haas and AlphaTauri are only three points further back.
“We just need to make sure that we score some points in Suzuka, and need to keep pushing,” said Pujolar. “I think it’s more tough for Haas and AlphaTauri. But for sure we cannot back off.”
The team expects to make some development gains before the end of the season, said Pujolar. “We will have some upgrades in the next events.
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“We just need to make sure that we qualify stronger than what we did here, and still [make sure the] start, lap one improves, and we should be then fighting with the guys in the top 10 as well, as several times this year.
“What we expect is we want to be fighting for the Q3 on Saturday, and from there we want to fight for the points with both cars. That’s what I want, the expectation.”
The Singapore Grand Prix weekend was tough for the team, with Zhou and Bottas qualifying 15th and 16th. Zhou then made a bad start and dropped to 18th, before a clash with Williams’ Nicholas Latifi put him out of the race. Latifi was held responsible for the collision and given a five-place penalty for this weekend.
Pujolar sympathised with his driver, calling it a “stupid incident” to have so early in the race. “It was very frustrating for Zhou especially in a race where a lot of things can happen. We were hoping to make some progress, but then that didn’t help.
“I think during the race, actually, in terms of pace and everything, it…
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