Alfa Romeo rue DRS came too late at Imola for Guanyu

In a race where many believe the race director was too cautious when it came to enabling DRS, Alfa Romeo kept pushing for it.

But, by the time it was enabled on Lap 34, it was too late for Zhou Guanyu to get into the points.

Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix got underway on a wet Imola circuit with Valtteri Bottas seventh on the grid while his team-mate Guanyu started from the pit lane after his sprint qualifying crash.

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While Bottas spent his race lapping inside the top ten, going on to finish P5, Guanyu struggled to recover position as he found himself stuck in a train of cars.

Led by the Williams of Nicholas Latifi, the drivers ran nose to tail with the entire train finding it very difficult to pass the car ahead.

They weren’t helped by the race director’s decision not to enable DRS, presumably because they felt the track wasn’t dry enough to do so safely.

Alfa Romeo’s head of track engineering Xevi Pujolar admits that cost Guanyu.

DRS was enabled for less than half of the Emilia Romagna GP – and @OllieHarden says the race showed the overtaking aid cannot be ditched just yet.https://t.co/OTaqZzcIrf #F1 pic.twitter.com/07mZSfnAal

— PlanetF1 (@Planet_F1) April 27, 2022

Pujolar said as per GPFans: “We were asking them actually because