14th place for Daniel Ricciardo and 18th place for Yuki Tsunoda: AlphaTauri didn’t see any land at the Formula 1 race in Las Vegas. Luckily for the racing team, none of the competitors finished in the points, which is why the order in the constructors’ championship did not change despite the setback. Daniel Ricciardo says he lacked grip throughout the race, meaning the Australian had no chance of keeping up.
He explained to “Motorsport.com”: “We traveled here optimistically because we hoped that things would go well. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case because we knew that we would have problems with the start and the restarts “We were missing a lot this race weekend because we had problems on the slippery asphalt when it was cold or when we were on new tires.”
The dynamics of the race did not play into AlphaTauri’s hands, because over the course of the 50 laps, in addition to the start of the race, there were a total of two further restarts after safety car phases and a restart after a virtual safety car, all of which made AlphaTauri weak.
“Never had a top 10 car”
“After a few laps we had temperature in the tires and thought we could catch up with the field, but that wasn’t the case. The restarts didn’t help us. That’s not an excuse, it’s simply a problem that we are addressing had this weekend.”
Ricciardo benefited from the fact that some drivers also had problems in the final stages of the race, but admitted that he had “never had a top 10 car”. “The glass is still half full,” said the Australian, who was pleased that his direct competitors Williams, Alfa Romeo and Haas were unable to score points. “This gives us a glimmer of hope that we can show something next week.”
“We simply had a different grip level than the others,” sums up Ricciardo, who lost a position on the “very slippery” outside track in Turn 3. “When I was overtaken there, I thought that we were really in a different league. So we have homework to do,” he says. “Next week is a different story, we’ll focus on that. But we have to analyze it.”
From a technical perspective, this was wrong
AlphaTauri technical director Jody Egginton also speaks of a “difficult race” for the team. He goes into even more detail than Ricciardo and blames graining on the front wheels for the poor performance. “As the situation improved, we were able to get more pace out of the car,” explains the technical director.
Since Tsunoda had to start from the back, AlphaTauri reached into its bag of tricks. The team put soft tires on the Japanese driver for the start, which, according to Egginton, “worked well at first,” as Tsunoda worked his way up to twelfth place. However, due to the virtual safety car on the first lap, the “graining got worse and worse,” which is why he had to pit earlier than planned.
“The problem continued throughout the race,” says Egginton. “That’s why we had to manage it.” AlphaTauri also suspects a problem with the drive train, which is why Tsunoda ultimately had to park its car prematurely. Ricciardo also had graining problems, which AlphaTauri got under control with a pit stop.
AlphaTauri is already concentrating on the next race in Abu Dhabi, where seventh place in the constructors’ championship will be attacked again, as Williams only has seven points more than its sister team Red Bull. “This track should actually suit us better.” said Egginton. “That’s why we want to provide both drivers with a better car to maximize our chances of beating Williams.”