Alfa Romeo has to struggle with not having scored any points in the Formula 1 sprint in Qatar. Valtteri Bottas was tenth, just one second shy of a possible point, while teammate Guanyu Zhou was only 14th after a pit stop during the third safety car phase.
“Points were a reasonable goal tonight and we had a realistic chance of getting at least one,” said team representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi. The strategy of putting both drivers on medium tires had proven to be correct. Bottas also thought that points were possible, but they were prevented in the end.
“Unfortunately, Valtteri has a position right after the last safety car start [Alexander] Albon lost. As a result, he was never able to [Pierre] Gasly and [Fernando] Alonso to attack those who were in front of him on the soft tires,” said Alunni Bravi.
Bottas also says: “We had the feeling that the pace was there to fight with the cars around us, but top speed is still our weakness. That’s why it’s difficult to move forward.”
He also struggles with the numerous safety cars that played into the drivers’ hands on softs. “I was happy with the mediums because the soft broke down quite a bit. But unfortunately the last safety car lasted a little too long, so we couldn’t try to build up something for the final phase,” says Bottas.
Formula 1: Williams pulls ahead of Alfa Romeo
This also means that competitor Williams was able to take two points away again and is now 13 points ahead of Alfa Romeo, which is why the result also leaves “a bitter taste” for the team, as Alunni Bravi says. “Because the car’s performance was good.” Bottas: “It at least feels like a step towards Suzuka.”
Teammate Zhou also started on the medium tires, but in the last safety car phase he took the chance to switch to softs in order to be able to attack again. But that didn’t work. “The reduction was simply too high,” complains the Chinese.
“The Soft was really terrible, to be honest. The Soft had a significantly higher degradation than the Medium, even though we drove significantly fewer laps and with little fuel,” he says.
“Our crew did a very good job during the pit stop, but this decision ultimately didn’t help him get closer to Valtteri and overtake Magnussen and Stroll,” added the team boss, who is positive about Sunday. “We weren’t able to convert our pace into points tonight, but we can be confident for tomorrow.”
“We have to execute the race perfectly and be aggressive from the start, especially when Valtteri is fighting for points within the top 10. We know that tire degradation will be an important factor in the race,” he continued.
First of all, everyone has to wait and see what Pirelli and the FIA decide on the safety of the tires, because that will have a big impact on the race.
“But hopefully we can build on today’s pace and have a realistic chance of scoring points,” said Bottas.