Alfa Romeo puts McLaren in its line of sight

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Alfa Romeo team boss Frédéric Vasseur is banking on upcoming updates to move his team up the order and tackle current F1 mid-field leader McLaren.

Alfa was a consistent top-ten finisher in the first four races of the 2019, courtesy of Kimi Raikkonen, before slipping back and underperforming in Spain, Monaco and Canada.

The Hinwil squad regained its footing in France, thanks once again to its stately Flying Finn, and for the first time this year put both its cars in the points in Austria.

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Vasseur believes there will be more to come from Alfa, but the Frenchman also knows that his rivals won’t be standing still.

“I think we did a good step forward over the last two or three races,” Vasseur told Motorsport.com.

“We have to improve a little bit the pace to be able to fight with the McLarens, which will be the next target.

“If you look at the last few races they were ahead, but we have good updates in the pipeline. For sure we need to do a step forward to fight with them in the races.

“We have a package for Silverstone and some other updates for Germany and Hungary, but we have to be realistic, everybody is pushing like hell, and they will also bring something.”

©AlfaRomeo

Vasseur underscored Antonio Giovinazzi’s performance last week in Austria which was a turnaround of sorts for the young Italian following a difficult start to his 2019 campaign.

“Antonio is also able to score points now, so it’s good for the team,” added the Alfa boss.

“He needs it, because the last few races he was very strong in qualy, he was matching Kimi. At the same time the races were a bit more difficult, so it was important for him to score points.

“At least he won’t have any more the question about when he will get the first points. The pace was there and he did a very strong race, and it was an important step in his own season.

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“We had the two cars in sixth and seventh on the grid, and the target was to finish in the points.

“We understood before the race that it would be difficult to keep Sebastian [Vettel] behind, and even [Pierre] Gasly.

“We had the top six cars in front us, plus the two McLarens. I think it was more or less the best we could achieve. So let’s see the next one.”

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