Alfa Romeo’s Frédéric Vasseur: “I can’t fault either of the drivers for their races”

Frédéric Vasseur says he cannot fault the performance of either Valtteri Bottas or Zhou Guanyu during Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, with the team scoring a seventh and eighth place finish at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Bottas took advantage of the safety car for Yuki Tsunoda’s crash to make his one and only pit stop to jump up the order, and although he finished eighth on the road, he was promoted to seventh after Fernando Alonso was handed a five-second time penalty for weaving when defending against the Finn.

Zhou was a top ten contender all afternoon long and was also able to gain a place thanks to Alonso’s penalty, with the Chinese driver ending a run of bad luck with his best result of his FIA Formula 1 World Championship career to date.

Vasseur, the Team Principal at Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN, says the team can be happy with the performance they showed throughout the weekend in Canada, and to score points with both drivers was a good result heading into the British Grand Prix next month.

“We achieved a really good result as a team and we can be really pleased with our performance,” said Vasseur.  

“Both Valtteri and Zhou executed their races well and were able to bring home their cars in the points, which is a nice reward after a few tough weekends. It shows the spirit of this team, we didn’t let our heads drop and we came back fighting here in Canada.

“I can’t fault either of the drivers for their races, they were solid and didn’t do mistakes: Valtteri was able to make the most of the timing of the Safety Car and Zhou delivered a very mature performance to get back in the points.

“The crew performed when they were called to the fore, such as with the double-stacked pit-stop – this is a true team result and it gives us a lot of confidence as we continue our fight in the midfield.”