Alfa Romeo’s 2021 racer

This is the Alfa Romeo’s new C41 Formula 1 racing car, which was unveiled in a launch event at Warsaw, Poland.

Featuring a revised livery that has inverted the colours from last season’s car, in particular the engine cover as this is in white with the logo in red. Title sponsor PKN Orlen makes an appearance on the red sidepods.

The C41 will make its on-track debut in a shakedown at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya before enjoying its first extended run-out in pre-season testing in Bahrain.

“The launch of a new car is always an emotional moment, the culmination of months of effort from everyone back at the factory and the start of a new adventure,” said team principal Frederic Vasseur.

“I think the philosophy upon which the team is based remains the same – we have to do a better job tomorrow than we are doing today. We finished last season in P8, so we have to target a better result in 2021. To do so, we have to keep improving in each department, trackside and back at HQ.

“Every team on the grid has very high expectations right now: all the teams expect to do a good job in the winter and to be in a good position for the first race, but soon it will be the time for everyone to show their cards.”

Alfa Romeo enters the 2021 season looking to bounce back from a disappointing campaign last year that mainly saw it fighting with Haas and Williams in the ‘Class C’ division.

Although the team was able to match its finish of eighth position in the constructors’ championship from 2019, its points tally was disappointing as Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi only collected eight points, recording a race finish of no higher than ninth.

Alfa Romeo was limited by the poor performance of Ferrari’s power units throughout last year, but the Italian marque hopes to have resolved the issues ahead of the 2021 season.

It is anticipated that Sauber Motorsport – which operates the Alfa Romeo Formula 1 squad out of Switzerland – is expected to extend its partnership with Ferrari until 2025. The current deal expires at the end of this season.

Alfa Romeo opted to retain both Raikkonen and Giovinazzi for 2021, marking their third year racing together.

The duo will be joined by reserve driver Robert Kubica once again as the team retains title sponsorship from Polish firm PKN Orlen, prompting this season’s unveiling to take place.

4 thoughts to “Alfa Romeo’s 2021 racer”

  1. Ferrari is expected to recover a “large part” of its power deficit in Formula 1 this year, reckons Alfa Romeo team principal Fred Vasseur.

    After a difficult 2020 campaign where the form of Ferrari and customer teams Alfa Romeo and Haas was hit by a drop in engine performance, the Italian manufacturer has been working hard over the winter to improve things.

    It is set to introduce an all-new power unit for this season which it believes will move it away from being the worst engine out there – although it does not think it will be in a position to overhaul where Mercedes is at.

    Speaking at the launch of Alfa Romeo’s 2021 car on Monday, Alfa Romeo chief Fred Vasseur expressed some optimism about the progress that Ferrari had made following recent discussions he had had with the team.

    “The collaboration with Ferrari is, I think, going very well,” he said. “We had a strong meeting, a long meeting over the winter to cover the points of last year, when perhaps we didn’t do the perfect job.

    “We are on a good path. I think that on their side, they will recover probably a large part of the issue that we had last year, and collaboration is getting better and better.

    “We won’t be taking some of their car, perhaps one or two elements, but not much more. But I think it’s not the key point of the collaboration.

    “The key point of the collaboration is to be convinced that we can learn from each other. In the scope of the regulations, we have to play with this, and we have to do the best job that we can do.”

    Alfa Romeo is heading in to 2021 with an unchanged driver line-up of Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi, as the outfit eyes making some progress up the order after finishing eighth overall last year.

    Vasseur added: “I think the philosophy upon which the team is based remains the same – we have to do a better job tomorrow than we are doing today.

    “We finished last season in P8, so we have to target a better result in 2021.To do so, we have to keep improving in each department, trackside and back at HQ.”

    Source: Motorsport.com

  2. March 4 2001 marked Kimi Raikkonen’s first ever Grand Prix with Sauber. And as he prepares for the 2021 season with the same squad – now in their guise as Alfa Romeo – the 41-year-old said he was still as excited about the challenge of racing and developing a car as he was when he was 21.

    Alfa Romeo launched their new C41 on Monday, with Raikkonen set to partner for Antonio Giovinazzi for a third consecutive year at the team in 2021.

    And asked where the motivation came from to prepare for yet another season, 20 years on from his first F1 start, Raikkonen replied: “Time goes quickly. Obviously it’s quite a long time ago but then I was a couple of years out of F1 in the middle of it, so it doesn’t feel like 20 years.

    “Obviously the racing and the driving [is what still excites me]. I’ve never been a big fan of all the rest… but I enjoy the racing and the challenge to try to improve things and getting better.

    “We’re excited for the year,” added Raikkonen, who with 329 starts to date is F1’s most experienced ever driver. “But it’s very unknown because we haven’t tried the car, there’s obviously rule changes. Where are we going to be? We don’t know, but in a few weeks’ time, obviously we’ll see from testing how things are running and how the car is feeling and roughly in one month’s time, in the first race, everybody will see where everybody is.

    “It’s going to be not many days before the first race, so we have to do a good three days [of testing], put [the laps in], learn a lot from the car and see what we get.”

    Giovinazzi, meanwhile, is entering his third full season in the sport, and said that he was looking to take “another step” following a difficult 2020 for Alfa Romeo as a team, which saw Raikkonen and Giovinazzi score just four points each, as the squad finished eighth out of 10 teams in the constructors’ standings.

    “Of course I feel much more ready this season compared to 2019,” said Giovinazzi, when asked at the C41’s launch about his preparations for 2021. “Still, I think I need to do another step to what I did already from the first season to the second season. This is my target as a driver for this season, and to try to improve in some points where I was struggling more last year. This is what [I’ve been doing] during the winter and what I will do during this season.”

    Meanwhile, with Alfa Romeo Team Principal Fred Vassuer able to call on the most experienced F1 driver of all time, while also having a former race winner, Robert Kubica, as Alfa Romeo’s test driver – with those two drivers having a combined age of 77 – Vasseur believes his team has a valuable font of experience to draw upon, alongside the youthful enthusiasm of the 27-year-old Giovinazzi, as they look to make up lost ground this season.

    “I’m really convinced that to have experienced guys – and the combination with Antonio, who is a bit more young, let’s say – it’s a good combination,” said Vasseur.

    “With less and less testing, [you] have to be ready when you are going on track, so to have an experienced guy in the car, it makes more than sense. And regarding Robert, the input he had last year with us… when there was an opportunity [for him] to drive the car in FP1, it was a huge push for us.

    “So the line-up is working well and I can’t wait to be at the first [race].”

    Source: Formula1.com

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