After fifty-five minutes and three laps, the two AF Corse 488 GT3 Evo 2020s crossed the finish line at the Lausitzring in second and fifth place. In so doing, they secured crucial championship points despite a Balance of Performance that robbed the Ferraris of 15hp, preventing them from battling all the way to the finish. The BoP made it tricky on the long straights of the chosen track configuration but added even more value to the result secured by the Red Bull AlphaTauri AF Corse team drivers.
Liam Lawson: “It wasn’t the best start, and in the early stages of the race, when we were all very close together, the lack of power meant that someone was always flanking or attacking me. When we started to bunch up, I felt safer, but that’s why I asked for an earlier pit stop. The stop was super- fast, probably the quickest of the race, and once again, the guys outdid themselves. We came back on track behind van der Linde and maybe lost the race at that point because I found Ellis in front of me when the latter came out of the pits. I didn’t make it past him, but I’m sure if I could have stayed ahead of him, I would have been able to fend off his attacks. Still, it was an excellent result considering our starting position. Racing on the banking wasn’t super easy, especially when the tyres had already covered 25 laps. The right rear was close to the limit, very degraded, so given the downforce generated on Turn 1, I was afraid of a failure, but luckily that didn’t happen. This layout isn’t the best given the power reduction, but I like it a lot, also because our car is very well balanced in this section”.
Alex Albon: “It wasn’t a good race. On the contrary, it was frustrating because, without power, we can’t attack or defend. With no cars in front, we managed to minimise the impact of the Balance of Performance, and the pace is good even if the top speed isn’t. In qualifying, we didn’t do too badly, but this penalised us too heavily in the race. We lost many positions on the straights because it was impossible to defend ourselves, but I managed to complete the whole race in fifth place”.