Pierre Gasly (AT01-04, Car 10)
Race: Pos. 8th
“It was an important day for me because I wanted to do well for Anthoine after what happened last year. We decided to go for a different strategy, starting on the hard compound. It was better than expected and I was able to attack and overtake quite a few cars. The move on Perez was especially intense but very enjoyable! We knew a safety car between the start of the race and lap 20 would be a killer for us, but unfortunately, that’s what happened and gave the other cars a free pitstop. We didn’t give up because we had a great car, good pace, so I pushed as hard as I could. After our pitstop, we exited almost last and we had to fight back through the field, but I enjoyed it and to recover to P8 was just great! I reckon the safety car cost us a potential P5 today because I think we lost around 20 seconds there and finished seven seconds behind Ocon in P5. We had a big job ahead of us today, so to recover the way we did was great and I think we can be very happy with that. It’s nice to be voted Driver of the Day, so thanks to all the people who voted for me and I’ll try to put this kind of performance again and again in the coming weeks.”
Daniil Kvyat (AT01-02, Car 26)
Race: Pos. 11th
“I think that we didn’t choose the right strategy today, so we will have to review our race. We couldn’t have known it before the race, so we split the cars and unfortunately, I was on the wrong side of the strategy call. It would have been better to start on the harder compound, and I felt I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time today, because at a track like Spa, it’s very hard to keep cars behind on old tyres.”
Claudio Balestri (Chief Engineer – Vehicle Performance)
“We had a good race today. We optimized our low downforce package during the weekend and it paid off. Our competitive top speed in the race permitted us to overtake many cars. The pit wall did a solid job in terms of strategy because we tried to maximize the advantage of free tyre choice. In the end, Pierre put in a fantastic drive, overtaking many cars which is very satisfying. Daniil was on different strategy, he pitted under safety car which was deployed for the crash between Russell and Giovinazzi, and similarly to most of the drivers we tried to go to the end with him on the base tyre. At the end of the race, Pierre finished P8 and Daniil finished just out of the points in P11. We now head to Monza with a bit of momentum to continue the fight for points”
Franz Tost (Team Principal):
“After Qualifying, Daniil and Pierre finished in P11 and P12 – which is quite a good position because you can decide which tyres to begin the race – so we opted to split the strategy. Daniil started on the Prime, while Pierre stared on the Base. Both had a really good start; Pierre immediately started to overtake the cars in front, moving up to P8. Daniil was two places behind when a safety car came as a result of Giovinazzi’s crash, so we decided to pit Daniil and leave Pierre out on the Base tyre, as for our strategy it was too early to pit him. Pierre did a very good job defending his position until, later on, other drivers managed to overtake him on fresher tyres, so we pitted him for Prime on lap 26. He then started a competitive comeback to close the gap and was able to overtake the Haas, Ferrari and the Racing Points to finish in eighth position. It was a fantastic drive from Pierre and without the safety car, our strategy to start on the Base would have paid off even more as I think Pierre could have finished higher up the order. Like many other drivers, Daniil suffered with the tyres at the end of the race, therefore he wasn’t able to score points and finished in P11. Now we are looking forward to going to our “first home race” out of three in Italy, it’s always nice to be back in Monza, where we have very good memories.”