Vasseur encouraged by Alfa Romeo’s ‘decent performance step’ in F1 2021

Alfa Romeo team principal Frederic Vasseur says he's encouraged by Alfa Romeo’s improved performance over the winter but admits it needs to back it up with points finishes after failing to score in the opening two rounds of the 2021 Formula 1 season.

While it still has no points to its name, Alfa Romeo has closed on F1’s main midfield pack in 2021.

Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi narrowly missed out on points in the Bahrain season-opener as they finished 11th and 12th.

Imola was a missed opportunity for the team as Giovinazzi was forced to make an unscheduled pit stop when running inside the top ten, while Raikkonen finished ninth on track at Imola but was handed a 30-second time penalty after the race for not following the correct procedure under the Safety Car.

Assessing Alfa Romeo’s performance so far in 2021, Vasseur said: “First, I think that we don’t have to make any conclusions after one event. We have to do it after a couple of events with different layouts and different track conditions and when you improve, it’s never coming from one pillar. 

“I think we improved a little bit everywhere including the engine, but on the aero I think we did a decent job but the target was to score points and at least on this we failed but for sure we did a decent step forward in terms of performance but the target is to score points.”

Vasseur remains hopeful Alfa Romeo can make the most of its improved 2021 challenger.

“I don’t have to be confident or not confident,” Vasseur added. “I’m just trying to do my best every single weekend with the team and I think that we had this kind of approach last year. 

“We did more than a decent step during the season, from the beginning to the end of the season and we again did a good step between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021 but we don’t have to be focused on what’s happened before, just to be focused on the next one.”