The ෴team formally unveiled the C42 on Sunday morning after running the car in an interim livery during the three days of testing at the Spanish venue.

Guanyu Zhou was hande🅰d the first opportunity to take the newly-painted car out on track in Barcelona before handing over to test driver, Robert Kubica.

The C42 maintains the traditional red and white colour💞s, with red more prominent for this ꦅseason. 

Zhou - who spent the last three seasons in F2 - will race alongside 10-time grand prix winner𝐆 Valtteri Bottas.&ꦏnbsp;

Alfa Romeo endured a difficult first test, completing the second-fewest amount of laps as꧂ it was plagued with reliability issues.

Speaking after the launch🍃 of the C42, team principal Frederic Vasseur says Alfa Romeo is aiming for seventh in the championship after slippi💟ng to ninth in 2021.

“The most important thing is to improve, always ཧto 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 impr𝓀ove the championship position.

“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 i𝓀t comes to numbers, I would say that P7 would be a decent target.”