What a mistake
The Q3 narrowly missed by Nico Hülkenberg in the qualifying of the Canadian Grand Prix had raised hopes for Audi in Montreal, at least aiming for a points finish that the debutant German team has missed since the first GP of this season. In that case, in Melbourne, it was Bortoleto who achieved ninth position, with Hülkenberg seeming this time the favorite to return to the top 10. The mission, however, spectacularly failed for both drivers.
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Two teams, one wrong choice
Just like what happened at McLaren, Audi also gambled on intermediate tires at the start, but from that moment on, as throughout the race, not a drop of water fell on Montreal. Consequently, both drivers immediately returned to the pits to fit soft tires: “It was a tough race for us – commented Hülkenberg, 12th at the finish – looking back, the conditions at the start evolved differently than we expected: it was a risk worth taking with what we knew at the time, but in the end the initial phase did not favor us and this penalized us right from the start. Even afterwards, we didn’t have the pace to recover as we would have liked. Others around us managed to recover faster, so there are definitely aspects to understand and improve in this regard as well. Overall, it was a challenging weekend with a lot to analyze. We will examine everything carefully, learn the lesson, and focus on Monaco!”
A thought shared by teammate Gabriel Bortoleto, who finished 13th: “It was a long race for us. We started on intermediate tires because we thought they could pay off, but the rain stopped quite quickly and this penalized us. The extra pit stop took us out of the fight for the win and from then on it became a race on a clear track, mainly focused on managing our pace. However, a positive aspect of today is that we brought both cars to the finish and gathered important data for the team. It is obviously a bit disappointing because with a weekend without incidents and a smooth race, I think we could have scored points, but sometimes racing is like that. Now the focus shifts to Monaco.”
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