Giovinazzi “angry” at Alfa Romeo’s ‘completely wrong’ F1 strategy call

Giovinazzi made a fantastic start from 11th on the grid, moving up to sixth as he picked his way through the opening lap carnage following Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo’s tangle at Turn 1.

Running in seventh ahead of Sebastian Vettel, Giovinazzi was the first driver inside the top 10 to switch to hards.

The Italian rejoined behind Ricciardo and Bottas, who were battling and struggling for pace. 

The time Giovinazzi lost behind the aforementioned do meant he was overcut by Vettel, teammate Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris, leaving him 11th and outside of the points.

Giovinazzi voiced his frustration over team radio after the race: “Hey guys, thanks for the great strategy.”

Speaking to Sky Italia, he said:  “I am disappointed and angry. They called me and I went in for the pit stop, but the problem is that I came out immediately behind Ricciardo and Bottas, who were not going at that moment. 

“I warmed up the tyres, but the pace was slower than on average. I lost all the undercut gap I should have done. 

“When I got out the tyres were already gone and when they stopped the others were faster than me. It was a completely wrong strategy.” 

“Until now I didn't want to believe it. But today I am really very disappointed.”

Alfa Romeo’s head of trackside engineering Xevi Pujolar explained how they expected the pace of Ricciardo and Bottas to be a lot faster than it was hence why it didn’t see an issue with pitting Giovinazzi.

“What we misjudged here is the pace of these two guys,” he explained. “We thought that their pace will be faster or as fast as Kimi and all these [other] guys.

“That was not ideal for Antonio and we didn’t expect that. At that point we compromised that race because Ricciardo was – I don’t know if he had some problem because even if you manage you don’t lose so much time. So I don’t know which kind of problems they had but we were losing track time with Antonio.”

Alfa Romeo remains ninth in the F1 constructors’ championship with four rounds to go, 12 points behind Williams.