Bortoleto in the points zone?
For the second consecutive time after Zandvoort, the Audi team wasted the opportunity to get closer in the Constructors’ standings to Haas, which did not reach the points zone with both of its drivers also at Monza. The same happened for the German team, immediately outside the top 10 with Gabriel Bortoleto and Nico Hülkenberg, respectively 11th and 12th, but things could change.
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Here’s why
The 10th place was actually taken by Yuki Tsunoda, the same Racing Bulls driver who made a mistake positioning his car on the grid at the end of the formation lap after the red flag was shown for Leclerc’s accident. The Race Direction allowed the cars to complete another reconnaissance lap, without penalizing Tsunoda. A decision that was not at all appreciated by the Four Rings team, which filed an appeal.
Consequently, Tsunoda’s current placement is in doubt, but while awaiting a ruling on this case, Bortoleto commented on his race: “I think I gave everything I had – explained the Brazilian – the start certainly did not make things easier for us and, once positions were lost on the first lap, it is always difficult to recover. We pushed hard and probably wore the tires a bit too much, but that is part of the comeback attempt. The Racing Bulls were quite strong today, especially on the straights, and keeping their pace was more difficult than expected. Nevertheless, the team provided me with a car capable of fighting much closer to the points than we expected, and we will continue to work on this ahead of next week’s Madrid race, where we hope to have more opportunities.”
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A complex weekend then for Audi, as also admitted by Hülkenberg: “Overall, we knew this would be one of the toughest weekends for us, given the characteristics of the circuit, so considering that, it was not a bad day. The second start was much better and I managed to gain some positions on the first lap, but unfortunately lost them again shortly after. We will have to analyze exactly what happened and understand if we could have done something different. From that moment on, the race was quite straightforward. Today we got the best out of the package and that is more or less our assessment for this weekend. We will take a break, analyze everything, and focus on Madrid.”
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