“The entire team is disappointed” – AlphaTauri’s Jody Egginton

Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda took a huge blow in their fight with the Alpine F1 Team for fifth in the Constructors’ championship, after neither Pierre Gasly or Yuki Tsunoda finished in the points at the Qatar Grand Prix.

It was a race to forget for AlphaTauri at the Losail International Circuit, after what was a strong qualifying for the team. Gasly started the race from the front-row for the first time in his Formula One career, with Tsunoda starting eighth. Both drivers endured painful races with the Frenchman and the Japanese driver massively struggling for pace. In the end the team scored zero points after Gasly finished eleventh with Tsunoda not far behind in thirteenth.

It was a disappointing end to what had been a good weekend for the team, the team’s result was made to feel even more sour after Fernando Alonso finished third and Esteban Ocon finished fifth for Alpine. It means Alpine now lead AlphaTauri by twenty-five points with two races to go.

AlphaTauri Technical Director Jody Egginton found the result hard to take with the result being a massive setback in their ques for fifth place.

“Tonight’s race has been a difficult one as both cars struggled with pace and tyre degradation. Yuki’s first stint was compromised when a visor tear off became stuck on the rear wing. This caused a loss of load and balance, necessitating the first stop being brought forward so it could be removed, which dropped him further back than ideal. With Pierre we were struggling with balance, as he had high front left tyre wear, meaning he could not follow the cars ahead.

“So again, we were forced to bring the first stop forward and adapt the strategy to allow tyre wear to be managed. The net result of these issues impacted track positions and we did not have sufficient pace to recover on this occasion. All credit to Alpine, they really made the soft tyre work and in such a tight battle this has made the difference tonight. 

“Obviously, the entire team is disappointed to have lost ground in the battle for fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, however there are still two races to go. Although challenging, our objectives remain unchanged and we will be pushing hard to score as many points as we can.”