Alfa Romeo Racing has had a rather bitter-sweet hybrid era so far in Formula One, hardly ever competing at the top half of the grid. And their worst season of all unfolded in 2021 when neither Kimi Raikkonen nor Antonio Giovinazzi could do anything extraordinary with the car as the Sauber-led outfit eventually wound up in P9, finishing only ahead of Haas.

Hence, coming out of such a struggle-induced season, Alfa Romeo’s team principal, Fred Vasseur, acknowledged the team’s target for 2022 that doesn’t seem too impractical or over-optimistic.

What did the Alfa Romeo boss say?

As reported by Motorsport Week, Vasseur opened up that Alfa Romeo’s goal for the 2022 season is to finish P7 in the championship, which isn’t unreasonable.

“The most important thing is to improve, always to improve and close the gap with the best ones on the grid,” he said. “You can have different KPIs in terms of performance, but for sure we are fighting for the championship and, at the end of the day, the final target is to improve the championship position.”

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“We had a disappointing season last year with P9 and we want to do much better this season, but I also want to close the gap in terms of pure performance – because this is the reality of the job of the people back at the factory. If it comes to numbers, I would say that P7 would be a decent target.”

Vasseur believes they have to be realistic

Vasseur admitted that the top-field teams will most probably retain their dominance in F1 despite heading into a new era. Hence, P7 seemed like a more realistic target.

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“It’s the first time we are developing and producing a car under the cost cap regulation,” he said. “Of course, I think the big teams will probably retain an advantage, so we have to be realistic.”

“It very often feels the same when you start a season: the first day is like the first day at school, you want to see who will be sitting next to you, but this one is even more exciting. We know that we stopped our development quite early last year and that we were fully focused on 2022, so we want to see if we can reap the rewards of that decision.”

Overall, a very interesting season awaits Alfa Romeo who will be running the newly designed and much fiercer Ferrari engine. So, will the Swiss-based outfit be able to take their fight to the mid-field this time around?

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