Antonio Giovinazzi insists he’s focused on performing well in Formula-E this year in his bid to earn an F1 seat for the 2023 season.
Giovinazzi’s F1 journey came to a halt with the culmination of the 2021 season. Alfa Romeo chose not to renew his contract, and replaced him with Chinese driver Guanyu Zhou.
Alfa Romeo wanted to bring in a completely new driver pairing ahead of the 2022 season. Giovinazzi’s teammate at the team, Kimi Raikkonen announced that he’d retire from F1 after the 2021 campaign. As a result, the Swiss team brought in former Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas to replace the 42-year old.
Bottas’ appointment wasn’t met with a lot of criticism unlike Zhou’s. The fact that 2021 F2 Champion Oscar Piastri missed out on a seat, whereas second runner up Zhou got one, didn’t sit well with many F1 fans.
However, Giovinazzi’s departure didn’t come as a surprise to anyone. His car never had the pace to fight for points consistently, but the Italian driver had a very quiet spell in the sport, where he did little to catch the eye.
After his F1 exit, he announced that he’d be driving for Dragon Penske racing at Formula-E for the 2022 season. Despite shifting his focus to other ventures, the 28-year old remains committed to paving his path back to F1 in the near future.
Antonio Giovinazzi was upset about being shown the exit year after his ‘best year’ in F1
Giovinazzi finished the 2021 season 18th in the standings with just 3 points to his name. Still, he feels that his last year in F1 was his best ever. We saw flashes of how good he can be, when he took his Alfa Romeo into Q3 several times throughout the course of the season.
However, his strong qualifying sessions could not make up for his lack of race pace. His teammate Raikkonen himself finished two places above him, with seven more points to his name.
“If I look at the Antonio of 2019 and the Antonio of 2021, it’s a big difference. But I don’t blame Alfa. In the end it had to be like this,” said Giovinazzi.
“Let’s turn the page and if I return to F1 I will give 120 percent. I will do 12 weekends in F1. But when there is Formula E, my focus will be on Formula E,” he added.
“Formula 1 is my main goal for 2023. In the past we’ve seen many drivers return, like Albon, like Ocon, like myself after the races in 2017. Everything is possible.”
“In 2022 there are many contracts, expiring so the hopes are there,” Giovinazzi concluded.
Also read: Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko takes a dig at George Russell and his performances in 2021
