2023 Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix highlights

Alfa Romeo Racing Stake

Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake scored a precious point on home soil, with Valtteri Bottas finishing tenth in an exciting Italian Grand Prix. Opting for a reverse strategy as one of only three cars starting on hard tyres, Valtteri and the team executed a spotless run to make up ground in the race’s second half and climb into the top ten. Zhou Guanyu had a more challenging race, finishing 14th in a performance that boasted some excellent overtaking manoeuvres.

Sunday’s point brings the team’s tally up to ten as it closes in on its nearest championship rivals and continues the fight for P7 in the standings.

Valtteri Bottas (car number 77):

Points were the target today, and we achieved that. It’s nice to be back in the top ten, as it has been a while, despite all our hard work, and this is for everyone at Alfa Romeo. It may be just one point, but it is a good reward for the job done to turn our weekend around and for the support of our home team from the grandstands. It’s been a clean race from our side: our pace had slightly improved from qualifying, and we nailed our strategy, which helped us have some clean air and keep out of trouble. Overall, it is safe to say it has been a good day in the office today and an excellent way to wrap up the European season.

Zhou Guanyu (car number 24):

I am glad to see Valtteri bring home one point from this race, a fact that helps us close the gap with Haas. Considering our results on Friday and Saturday, we made a massive step forward, which is encouraging for the races ahead – mainly as we are meant to bring further upgrades in Singapore, where we must make other improvements. Overall, it has been a clean race from my side; Valtteri and I were on different tyre strategies; he started on hard tyres, and I was on mediums, focusing on the Alpines in the hope of undercutting them. In terms of pure pace, we were still behind Williams; for this reason, it’ll be crucial to make that step forward in Singapore and keep working to add new points to our tally.

Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative:

Before the race, we said our target today was to score at least a point, and it’s essential we were able to achieve it. We executed a perfect race and we were able to hit our target. It’s especially remarkable, given the problematic Friday and Saturday we endured, but the team dug deep and we could turn things around when it mattered. We must pay tribute to them and our colleagues in Hinwil for their support before and during the weekend. Valtteri made no mistake from lights to flag and was able to make his reverse strategy work, moving up the order in the closing stages. Unfortunately, it was a more difficult race for Zhou: we tried an aggressive strategy, pitting him a second time for new mediums, but the pace wasn’t enough to make it into the top ten. We can celebrate this point, but we must not forget about the struggles of Friday and Saturday. We must analyse what went wrong, learn and improve constantly, starting in Singapore. We showed good race pace, and if we can improve our qualifying positions, we can fight at every Grand Prix. We will not give up, not until after the final corner of the last race, in our quest to score points: we need to work harder as our target remains P7 in the championship. Finally, it’s great to be able to celebrate with a top-ten finish what has been an incredible weekend on and off the track: we started on Thursday with the launch of the new Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale in front of our garage; we had our colleagues on the grandstand, putting together an outstanding choreography; and we delivered an excellent race to top it off. Hopefully, this can start a new phase of our championship.

Alfa Romeo F1 Team best pictures:

Andreas Seidl (GER) Sauber Group Chief Executive Officer.
Formula 1 World Championship, Italian Grand Prix, Rd 15, Friday 1st September 2023. Monza Italy.

Zhou Guanyu (CHN) Alfa Romeo F1 Team.
Formula 1 World Championship, Italian Grand Prix, Rd 15, Friday 1st September 2023. Monza Italy.

Valtteri Bottas (FIN) Alfa Romeo F1 Team C43.
Formula 1 World Championship, Italian Grand Prix, Rd 15, Friday 1st September 2023. Monza Italy.

Valtteri Bottas (FIN) Alfa Romeo F1 Team C43.
Formula 1 World Championship, Italian Grand Prix, Rd 15, Saturday 2nd September 2023. Monza Italy.

(L to R): Valtteri Bottas (FIN) Alfa Romeo F1 Team and Zhou Guanyu (CHN) Alfa Romeo F1 Team on the drivers’ parade – Alfa Romeo grandstand.
Formula 1 World Championship, Italian Grand Prix, Rd 15, Sunday 3rd September 2023. Monza Italy.

Valtteri Bottas (FIN) Alfa Romeo F1 Team C43.
Formula 1 World Championship, Italian Grand Prix, Rd 15, Sunday 3rd September 2023. Monza Italy.

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