Antonio Giovinazzi finally broke his Formula 1 points duck with a solid 10th place at the Austrian Grand Prix.
The Italian faced a stern challenge to hold off Sergio Perez for much of the race, but eventually, the threat eased allowing the former GP2 runner-up to score a point at the 11th attempt.
“Finally, my first point of the season,” the Alfa Romeo driver stated. “I’m really happy with that, with two cars in the top 10.
“McLaren, it seems so far is stronger than us but in Silverstone, we’ll have a new upgrade.
“We’re going the right way like we did in Paul Ricard, making a lot of steps so hopefully we can be close to them.
“It was a really close race and it was nice to give some pressure to Kimi [Raikkonen]. We need to take the positives from the weekend, the cars in Q3 and the cars in the top 10, so really happy.”
Also Read:
Pressure had been growing on Giovinazzi, who was the only non-Williams driver to have not scored in 2019 before Sunday, but the Ferrari-backed driver claims he had always been at ease about the situation.
“The pressure was coming from you guys (media), every weekend with questions like ‘when are you getting the first point’,” he said.
“But I was relaxed, the performance was improving race by race.”