Alfa Romeo vows to "fight until the end" with Williams

Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo vows to "fight until the end" with Williams

Williams leads Alfa Romeo by 16 points

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Thursday 30 September 2021 15:45

Alfa Romeo head of trackside engineering Xevi Pujolar has vowed the team will "fight until the end" in its race with Williams for eighth in the F1 constructors' standings.

With Williams struggling in recent years and Alfa Romeo showing promising performance early in the season, the Hinwil-based outfit would have been confident of securing championship position and potentially troubling the midfield.

But Alfa Romeo failed to capitalise in the first half of the year whilst an incredible resurgence from Williams, that includes a podium at the washed-out Belgian Grand Prix, has seen it take a 16-point lead over its rival.

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But after Kimi Raikkonen secured points in Russia with eighth, the team's best result of the year, Pujolar said: "We keep pushing.

"We do our best every race and we will fight until the end of the season and we will see after Abu Dhabi if we did it [beat Williams] or not.

"At the moment, we just try to get the best of everything every time. That is it, we focus on the best of ourselves."

Williams risks allowed with healthy margin

George Russell also secured a points-finish after qualifying third with a remarkable performance to finish 10th based on a strategic gamble as wet turned to dry at the Sochi Autodrom.

Asked if the points margin over Alfa Romeo allowed for certain risks to be taken, Robson said: “I think there is some truth in that.

"Especially when days like Saturday pan out because that was the kind of opportunity where they could have come storming back at us. On this occasion, they didn't have a great day and we did alright so that definitely unlocks a little bit of freedom.

"But I think we can take confidence in the decisions we have been taking and we can carry on with that approach and there is a lot of truth in offence being a good form of defence in this kind of situation."