Zhou Guanyu says he wanted to brake as late to regain position after slow start in F1 Hungarian GP, as Valtteri Bottas adds on his race.
After a surprising double Top 10 qualifying for Alfa Romeo in F1 Hungarian GP where Guanyu was fifth and Bottas in seventh, they both ended up outside the points after a bad start for both the drivers. The Chinese racer, in fact, had a collision.
An anti-stall moment caught Guanyu out and in or to gain the positions back, he hurried and braked late where he hit the back of Daniel Ricciardo who hit Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly was collected in the melee. Both the Alpine drivers retired.
But Ricciardo and Guanyu managed to continue albeit with no chance of points. The Chinese racer was certainly left disappointed with the situation after a career best qualifying. “I have no idea,” he said to media. “I need to have a look because I was holding the revs before the four lights and then I just lost all the response from the throttle, so I started basically with zero throttle.
“I was flat out with the pedals. We need to see. Unfortunately, really disappointed because it could be really good from that point at the start and something happened higher than what I’ve experienced before, so we need to see. It’s very disappointment unfortunately, nothing more I can say.
“We need to see more in detail what happens there because this is strange. It never happened before at all. So my start was actually a pull-away, it wasn’t actually a start. That’s why you saw my car wasn’t moving. And then I was trying to obviously brake as late as I could in order to try to gain some positions back.
“Then partly due to the dirty air of the cars ahead unfortunately I locked up into them…Not what I wanted to be doing and the race was pretty much over after the line for me. Obviously we lost the chance. We need to continue to have a strong car, especially on a Saturday too and make more luck and chances happen on a Sunday race. Not the best day of course for the team,” summed up Guanyu.
The problem for the Chinese driver cost teammate Bottas as well who was behind him on the grid and he had to go around him which cost him places. There was also a moment when Lance Stroll passed him which was deemed clear by the stewards.
The compromise hurt them along with a slight lack of pace. “Lap 1 was a bit compromised, both of us,” said Bottas. “Zhou had some issue at the start, so I also had to go around him, so lost some momentum. Then all the cars on the soft tyre in Lap 1, they were just flying by. Then, in the end, just lacking a bit of pace.
“I couldn’t at any point fight to go further through the grid. Not quite as good as Saturday, but at least they take the positives from Saturday’s pace. We unlocked something I think, a bit more of the package here. So let’s see what we can do in Belgium. Obviously it’s a very different type of circuit but let’s see.”
Here’s the incident involving Alpine: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2023-hungarian-grand-prix-nightmare-start-for-alpine-as-ocon-and-gasly-dnf-after-contact-on-lap-1.1772220185554398592.html
Here’s Alpine on the hit from Zhou Guanyu
