Preview – 2019 FIA Formula One myWorld Grosser Preis von Österreich.
After a successful outing in France, our busy calendar takes us to Austria for round nine of the 2019 season. Austria is a magical place for music, history and nature and the ideal setting for the story we chose for our Race Preview.
Most of you will be familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet, the tragic lovers divided by an intractable family feud. But maybe you won’t be aware of another, happier story of friendship – that of Stelvio and Giulia.
Up in the mountains of Styria, the hills were alive with the sound of engines as friends Stelvio and Giulia, quite literally, tore up the narrow roads of Spielberg aboard their powerful machines. Now, we don’t know how Stelvio and Giulia did look like, but let’s imagine for a moment they looked a bit like their respective Alfa Romeo Racing ambassadors, Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi, frolicking in the fields in their lederhosen and dirndl (we know, this is an image that will be difficult to forget).
In between a lap and the other on their makeshift track, each time trying to improve their times, the two cemented their friendship by virtue of a common love of all things Austrian. They taught every child they could find to make music and sing, they composed beautiful symphonies (of course, from a very early age) and ate copious amount of Wiener Schnitzel (they just left the goatherd by himself, he liked to be lonely). And when the day of the big race finally came, Stelvio and Giulia helped each other surpass everyone’s expectations and claimed the big prize (they had Kaiserschmarrn to celebrate, obviously).
Sounds like a lot of cultural stereotypes, all bashed together in this preview as we had no other feasible idea? Maybe. But we scored a double-points finish in Spielberg last year, and we’d really love for it to become yet another cliché on our list.
Until then… so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!
Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal Alfa Romeo Racing and CEO Sauber Motorsport AG:
“Everyone is talking about the points scored for our Team in Le Castellet, but for me it was even more important to see how the team reacted to the streak of weak races. We picked ourselves up, we worked hard and we got the performance back into the car and that was exactly the spirit I wanted to see. Austria will be no different and that’s why I’m quite confident for both cars to score points. At least that’s our goal.”
Kimi Räikkönen (car number 7):
“What can I say? I enjoyed the race in France and I hope the one in Austria will be fun too. The upgrades seem to work, we understand car and tyres better and therefore I don’t see any reasons why we shouldn’t be able to score points again.”
Antonio Giovinazzi (car number 99):
“Going into the Spielberg weekend I would like to concentrate on the positives of the previous race. The pace in qualifying was great and it was good to feel the fighting spirit within the team to come back, to gain performance and finally score points as a team again. It’s true to my values of never giving up and I’m grateful to see that the team is helping me wherever they can in order to score my first points. Therefore I can’t wait to get in the car again in order to deliver.”
Media contact:
Thomas Hofmann, Head of Communications, thomas.hofmann@sauber-group.com
Justine Hoffmann, Senior Communications Manager, justine.hoffmann@sauber-group.com, +41 79 774 03 12
Will Ponissi, Senior Communications Manager, william.ponissi@sauber-group.com, +41 79 591 57 85
About Sauber Group of Companies:
The Sauber Group of Companies is composed of three entities – Sauber Motorsport AG, which operates the Formula One team – Sauber Engineering AG, which focuses on prototype development and additive manufacturing – and Sauber Aerodynamik AG, which conducts full- and model-scale testing in the factory’s state-of-the-art wind tunnel and creates ground-breaking innovations in the field of aerodynamics. The companies collaborate closely to apply the expertise of over 450 dedicated individuals at the headquarter in Hinwil, Switzerland, to all internal and external projects.
Since its founding in 1970, the passion for racing has been at the heart of Sauber. For over 45 years, the innovative Swiss company has been setting standards in the design, development and construction of race cars for various championship series, such as Formula One, DTM, and WEC. Following its own Formula One debut in 1993, Sauber Motorsport AG has established one of the few traditional and privately held teams in the sport. After 25 years of competition in Formula One, the company launched a long-term partnership with Title Sponsor Alfa Romeo in 2018 and enters the 2019 championship under the Team name Alfa Romeo Racing.