Despite a ninth-place finish for Yuki Tsunoda at the United States Grand Prix, Jody Egginton, the Technical Director of Scuderia AlphaTauri, has admitted the team ‘missed an opportunity’ in Austin to take home a bigger points haul.
AlphaTauri’s failure to take home a bigger points tally from the Circuit of the Americas has now allowed Haas F1 Team to build a two-point advantage over AlphaTauri in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship Constructors’ Standing’s.
The strong race pace on show from the AT03 had appeared to set up AlphaTauri for a strong day, as by lap thirty-two the team had both Pierre Gasly and Tsunoda in seventh and eighth-place respectively.
Gasly’s race would soon come undone as the stewards had deemed the Frenchmen to be more than ten car lengths behind the car in-front during the second safety car of the race. Gasly was handed a five-second time penalty for his exploits and would serve the penalty during his second pit-stop of the race.
It would soon go from bad to worse for the Frenchmen, as the stewards had found that Gasly had not correctly served his time penalty before his mechanics started the pit-stop and was subsequently handed a ten-second time penalty which would be applied to his finishing time. The Frenchman showed great resiliency but was ultimately left with too much to do and would come home for an eleventh-place finish which would soon become a thirteenth-place finish with his time penalty added on to his finishing time.
Egginton acknowledged the strong race pace that Gasly had shown across the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday but admitted that the second penalty he received after his second pit-stop ruined any chance of a potential points finish. The Technical Director of the team also took the time to congratulate their sister team on achieving the Constructors’ Championship in Austin.
“Firstly, as a team we’d like to say a big congratulations to Oracle Red Bull Racing for securing the Constructors’ Championship this weekend. Now looking at our race, we need to get into the details later, but we have missed an opportunity for more points today.
“Pierre was leading the midfield pack of cars, fighting for seventh until his second stop, but dropped behind this pack due to the penalty we picked up under the first Safety Car. This issue, and a subsequent further penalty, effectively ended his chance of points.“
Tsunoda was able to execute one of his most impressive drivers of the season in Austin, as a drive from the back row of the grid to ninth-place saw the Japanese driver snap his twelve race streak of finishing outside the points. The Japanese driver had originally made Qualifying Two and qualified in fifteenth-place but after AlphaTauri elected to change his gearbox overnight, the twenty-two year old was handed a five-place grid drop for Sunday’s race.
Tsunoda was able to demonstrate a strong level of race pace across the race and after rejoining the grid in fifteenth-place after his second pit-stop, the Japanese driver was able to make his way through the field and pass Zhou Guanyu and Alexander Albon late on to cross the finish line in tenth-place.
Tsunoda was eventually promoted to ninth-place as a result of Fernando Alonso’s thirty-second time penalty. Despite securing his first points finish since May, Egginton stated that if Tsunoda hadn’t struggled to get up to speed on the hard compound tyre, the result could have been even better for the young Japanese driver and AlphaTauri in Austin.
“With Yuki, he did well to also get into this pack from 19th on the grid, but he struggled a bit on the Hards, meaning it took too long to get past a couple of cars ahead. Therefore, he ran out of time to get on to the back of Magnussen and put him under some pressure. However, we’ve got three races to go and there’s still a lot to play for!”
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