“Race was over before it got going for both drivers” – AlphaTauri’s Jody Egginton

Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda suffered the worst possible outcome at their home Italian Grand Prix, with both Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda failing to make the start of the race due to mechanical issues at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza.

The weekend had started promisingly, Gasly qualified in sixth place on Friday for Saturday’s sprint qualifying, whereas Tsunoda failed to make it out of qualifying one. The weekend from then on quickly spiralled out of control, Gasly crashed out of sprint qualifying on the opening lap and Tsunoda finished sixteenth.

This would be the last we would see of AlphaTauri on track at Monza, with both cars then retiring from Sunday’s race before the lights had even gone out.

Scuderia AlphaTauri Honda Technical Director Jody Egginton, was very disappointed with the unfortunate outcome of the team’s home race but is taking some consolidation from the fact that the team’s car looked strong yet again.

“Unfortunately, today’s race was over before it got going for both drivers. Yuki reported a braking issue on his laps to grid which, as hard as the guys tried, could not be resolved, forcing his retirement. Then, a system issue identified with Pierre’s car early on meant we had to retire that car also. Frustratingly, we have not been able to turn the strong performance shown by Pierre on Friday into points here.

“Likewise, Yuki has not been able to get further important race mileage and experience under his belt, as such we have not been able to take the fight to our closest competitors. However, the package has again shown itself to be competitive and everyone will be pushing to ensure we carry this into the next races, with the focus on recovering ground to our closest competitors.”