Alfa Romeo hopes that the specific conditions in Las Vegas will work in its favor

Alfa Romeo is having a very difficult season. The Italian team is currently in 9th place in the constructor’s standings (prior to the Las Vegas GP). Since AlphaTauri brought valuable improvements in Austin, Sauber has lost ground, going down to 8th place in the championship. Alfa Romeo has faced many difficulties in terms of development.

The team of Alessandro Alunni Bravi had made improvements, notably during the Singapore Grand Prix and the Qatar Grand Prix. Alfa Romeo was rewarded with six points at the Lusail International Circuit. However, their competitor AlfaTauri did much better and across several races.

A dark series to erase

Alfa Romeo is on a negative streak and AlphaTauri is on a very positive momentum before reaching Las Vegas. However, the conditions are expected to be very unusual in Nevada for this race. The nighttime temperature is very low and it’s possible that the track temperature will be one of the lowest ever recorded in F1, making the track very slippery. Additionally, the brand new low-grip surface will pose an additional challenge. Therefore, the race is likely to be quite open.

With these very delicate conditions, Alfa Romeo hopes that the entire grid will struggle, which could benefit both drivers: Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu. We have a lot of question marks about this track, conceded Alfa Romeo’s Engineering Director, Xevi Pujolar. But given the situation we are currently in, I believe we need a big challenge from both the engineering and driver side, just to ensure that we have the opportunity to change the championship order. We need Vegas to be a very difficult weekend for everyone to make sure we can take advantage of it. That’s our challenge now.

Important points to look for

If the momentum is not ideal with two races to go, Alfa Romeo still hopes to score points in the championship. The Italian team is only four points ahead of the last-placed team, Haas. Ahead of Sauber in the standings, there are still two teams within reach if they have a very good weekend. AlphaTauri is leading its Italian compatriot by a small margin of five points, and Williams only has a 12-point advantage. Furthermore, while Ricciardo and Tsunoda are in good form at AlphaTauri, Williams is facing much bigger difficulties towards the end of the season.

The end of the standings remains open for the last two races of the season, and Alfa Romeo is aware of this. We can still try to compete with the Williams and Haas, but with the AlphaTauri at the moment, with the pace they showed in Brazil, they are too fast, analyzed Xevi Pujolar. If everything is straightforward and direct, then it will be very difficult for us to have a chance to recover P8 or even consider fighting for P7, it becomes very complicated.

Since the Qatar Grand Prix on October 8th, Alfa Romeo hasn’t scored a single point in the race.