Scuderia AlphaTauri technical director Jody Egginton regretted a huge loss from changing tires at the wrong time at the Singapore Grand Prix.
As in the previous day’s qualifying, track conditions changed from wet to dry, and AlphaTauri made a double stop on lap 33, third fastest overall. Two tires were changed from intermediate to slick.
However, at that time, it was still too early to run on dry tires with no treads, and two laps after the stop, Yuki Tsunoda slammed into the barrier at Turn 10 and exited the car.
Regarding the accident that caused the team to retire, Yuki Tsunoda said, “I completely misjudged the braking point and went into the corner too fast.”
On the other hand, Pierre Gasly was running in 7th place before the pits, but lost two places due to an early tire change, and also gained an advantage due to the safety car introduced to deal with Yuki Tsunoda’s accident. of his competitors.
After finishing the race, Gasly described the team’s decision as a “mistake”, saying that he had taken a “big risk” by making a pit stop in front of the other cars, dropping his position and even losing points which were complained about.
“Despite the hard work the team and drivers have put in all weekend, we failed to maximize our chances of scoring a ton of points with both cars,” said Egginton, before deciding to switch to slicks early and admitting it was a mistake.
“This was because the engineering team decided too early to switch to dry tyres.
“They both lost track positions because of this, and Yuki ran off the track immediately after setting out.”
“So only one car got the checkered flag.”
Gasly could have lost five points. With this, it would not have been possible to pass Haas in the Constructors’ Championship, and he would have moved up to 7th place, but in fact, he dropped one place and fell back to 9th place.
“I got a lot less points than I should have brought home,” Egginton said with frustration.
“As a team, we will now carry out a detailed review of the race to understand areas for improvement and learn how to make the most of it the next time we have a similar opportunity.”
“We missed a very big opportunity tonight, and we should have grabbed it with both hands.”
Sergio Perez (Red Bull) won the last race of the tumultuous GP Round 17 Singapore F1 2022, where six cars were forced to retire. Charles Leclerc finished second, followed by Carlos Sainz and Ferrari on the podium in third.
The next round, the Japanese GP, which will be staged at the Suzuka Circuit, will start with free practice 1 on Friday, October 7th.
