Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN Formula One Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur says he is immensely proud of the outfits reaction to the news that Kimi Raikkonen has tested positive for COVID-19.
Speaking following qualifying where Antonio Giovinazzi secured the team’s best performance 9f the season with seventh place on the grid.
Our best qualifying performance of the year comes at the end of a rollercoaster of a day here in Zandvoort. Of course, the morning started with the news about Kimi, but I was proud of the way the team responded. Robert was able to get up to speed quickly, despite this being a challenging track on which he had no recent experience, and then Antonio produced a really good performance to qualify seventh. The team really pulled together in a difficult moment to show its spirit: now we need to convert today’s result into points.
Antonio Giovinazzi who set a 01:09.790s commented saying:
Today’s result feels really good, and I need to give big thanks to the team. We had a technical issue to a wheelnut between Q2 and Q3, but the crew did an amazing job: they did everything they could and they were able to put me back on track. Then I had to really push hard as I wanted to repay them for their work: the lap in Q3 was mega. We will start from a good position in tomorrow’s race, we need to continue pushing, stay out of trouble and use this opportunity to bring home a good result
Robert Kubica who is competing in place of Kimi Raikkonen will start the race from 18th place and speaking following the session he said:
My job as a reserve driver is to be ready to stand in, but you never wish for the need to arise. I hope Kimi gets better soon. Considering the short notice and the little practice I had, I think today went ok. This is quite a demanding track, one I had to learn almost from scratch, and practice went quite quickly, but I think I maximised the time I had today. Unfortunately, on the final outlap in Q1 I was affected by the traffic and couldn’t get the tyres in the right window, and that ruined my lap. Tomorrow will be a long race, let’s see what we can do.”