Alfa Romeo claims FIA should have enabled DRS faster during the Imola Grand Prix

Alfa Romeo claims FIA should have enabled DRS faster during the Imola Grand Prix

With Valtteri Bottas and F1 newbie Guanyu Zhou behind the wheels, Alfa Romeo has established itself as a somewhat strong midfield team because of the team’s impressive performance in all the four races that have happened till now in the new Formula 1 season 2022.

Valtteri Bottas has repeatedly come in the top 10 in three out of the four races, as he had to succumb to a DNF in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Guanyu Zhou, although it is only his debut year in Formula 1, has put up a decent performance in the races so far, but in the last weekend in Imola, he fell to the back of the grid and finished with P15 and no points to his name.

Now, Xevi Pujolar, Head of Track Engineering at Alfa Romeo, spoke out about how his team was skeptical over the FIA’s decision to delay the start of DRS in the Emiglia Romania Grand Prix. The Imola GP started off in damp conditions, but just after the racers had put in a few laps, the slight rain stopped and the track began to dry up. The FIA could not enable DRS at that time because of the wet track conditions, but by lap 20, all the cars were running with medium or soft tyres and yet, the authority only enabled DRS in lap 34.

“We were stuck behind Latifi” : Alfa Romeo Executive raises concerns over the FIA’s decision to delay DRS in Imola

Alfa Romeo Head of Trackside Engineering

While the conditions in Imola began to switch to dry, McLaren decided to test the medium tyres on Daniel Ricciardo in lap 17, after which, the Australian clocked the fastest lap of the race. Seeing that, by lap 20, all the other cars had dry tyres put on them. Teams like Alfa Romeo needed the DRS to be enabled fast so that their drivers could gain some positions but the Drag Reduction System was enabled only in lap 34.

Speaking about this, Pujolar said, “We were asking them actually because they will do it when they think it is safe enough to have the DRS open.

“But obviously, for us, because we were stuck behind Latifi, we were saying ‘The drivers are saying it is good enough. Can we have the DRS?’.”

After this, Zhou was able to drive past Latifi once DRS was enabled, but the Chinese racer failed to compete with the other cars as his tyres were already too worn out.

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