GP D'Italia - Debriefing

Returning to Monza after reaching the pinnacle of his career there last year, Pierre's expectations were very high. This time, with a packed house of fans, everything was set for a great weekend of racing at Monza.

The weekend took place under the new qualifying format: a sprint race, 18 laps, no pit stops, no breaks, a direct race to determine the starting positions on race day.

Pierre started his weekend with an excellent FP1 session. The team opted for soft tyres and finished FP1 in P5 with a time of 1:20:926.

Later in the day, in qualifying, Pierre again achieved a very solid 6th position. He even managed to make qualifying in this position with an AlphaTauri seem normal.

Pierre: "I'm very happy with what we did today. I gave it my all on the track and we put in a very good lap to put the car in P6. We really maximised our potential, especially in Q3. It's always tricky here because we're always playing cat and mouse with the other cars to get the aspirations in qualifying. I'm very happy that we managed to get out of all these traps, and that we once again managed to qualify in the top 6, for the 11th time this season out of 14 races.

The following day, sprint qualifying made its second appearance since the launch at Silverstone. Pierre collided with a McLaren in the first corner. His front wing broke before going under the car, sending it flying off the track until it crashed into the tyre wall. Fortunately, Pierre was uninjured and the car will be roadworthy for the race.

Pierre after sprint qualifying: "I'm obviously very disappointed, it hasn't been a good day. We got off to a very good start on mediums, and I managed to overtake Lando, as well as Lewis. Then, at the first corner, I was a bit surprised by Daniel, I touched him a bit at the back and damaged the front wing. At first, I didn't know if it was serious, but it broke completely and went under the car at Turn 3, I couldn't turn any more and I went straight into the wall. Tomorrow's objective is of course to try and get into the points. I'm going to watch the replay this evening and analyse the possible overtaking points, because it seemed to me that it was difficult to gain a lot of positions today. We know that anything is possible and we'll do our best to come back tomorrow. "

Unfortunately, Sunday's race only added to the frustration. New problems arose very early in the race and Pierre had to retire after just 8 laps due to a system problem with the car. This is the last thing we wanted to see at Monza 2020.

@AlphaTauriF1 tweeted: "When it rains, it pours", which sums up the whole weekend in a few words.

Pierre: "We started the weekend well, with another solid performance in qualifying, but since yesterday's Sprint race, everything has been very disappointing. Today, we realised that something was wrong during the warm-up laps, but we weren't able to fix the problem before the start of the race. We didn't know exactly what the problem was and unfortunately we had to retire the car. This is our home race for the team and it's difficult to lose both cars here today. We know that our performance and that of the car is there, we just need to work even harder and start preparing for the next race straight away.

The car. It's our home race, so it's difficult to lose both cars here today. We know that the car's performance is there, so we just need to work hard and get ready for the next race".