Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi blamed his bizarre pit-stop mishap for his "s**t race" at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The Italian was hampered during a pit stop under the safety car on lap eight when the team discovered a deflated tyre that was due to be fitted, forcing the pit crew into locating a new set that cost Giovinazzi 30 seconds and dropped him to last.
Xevi Pujolar, the team’s head of trackside engineering, explained: “It was just an operational problem in that the valve got damaged and there was no way to solve it at that point. There was no way back.
“Picking up the set at one point, when getting everything ready in the garage, that damaged the valve."
When asked about the issue, a dejected Giovinazzi added: "After that moment my race was compromised with nothing happening in front either.
"That set... I didn't have the possibility to use them again so we lost that set of mediums. Just a s**t race!"
An added dashboard issue meant Giovinazzi was unable to recover in time to get back to the main group of cars before the race restarted.
On whether he had the pace to have joined the midfield battle for points had it not been for the problems, Giovinazzi, who finished 15th, added: "I don't know.
"If you are not there, you cannot know what will happen. The pace wasn't bad but we lost the race really early."
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