Alfa Romeo make strong improvements: "We are much faster & have a much better car"

Kimi Raikkonen started his 19th season in Formula 1 on Sunday in Bahrain. The Alfa Romeo driver competed well and demonstrated that the team have made gains over the winter but he was disappointed to miss out on a points finish. 

After a few battles for 10th place, Raikkonen ended up finishing 11th just a few seconds behind Lance Stroll. Despite this frustration, Raikkonen finds positives in the car performance. 

“It wasn’t a bad race, we had some good fights and the car behaved nicely, but it’s disappointing not to bring home points when we were in the top ten nearly all night. Had the race been a few laps longer, we probably would have been able to catch the cars in front but we will keep trying," Raikkonen said in the press release. 

"The car felt good, as it did in testing, so it is clear we have made a step forward compared to last year: we still have a bit to work to close the gap with the top five teams, but we keep fighting to find that little bit extra.”

Antonio Giovinazzi

Giovinazzi was also in the mix for points. The Italian had a quiet race, though he did get lapped by the leaders at a crucial stage. The point at which Max Verstappen ran wide when overtaking Lewis Hamilton. 

Similar to Raikkonen, Giovinazzi sees improvements made which they hope will lift them further ahead of Williams and Haas at the back of the grid. 

“Compared to the start of last season, we are much faster and have a much better car so we can be happy about the step forward we have made. It wasn’t enough to bring home points today, but we are very close to the top ten and we can consistently fight for the points. My race was good, I think I got everything I could out of the car, but of course we lost time at the first pit-stop," he said. 

In the end, mistakes do happen and we have to learn from them and make sure we don’t do them again next time; without the issue, I would have probably been close to where Kimi ended. Now my focus is on Imola, racing again in my home country and hopefully achieving a good result to make the Tifosi at home happy.”