The Australian Grand Prix was a far more than disappointing race for Valtteri Bottas.
Red flags during the race completely disrupted the team’s strategy, which was no longer able to lift the driver’s race. In the end, he achieved only 11th position out of the 12 finishers.
“There was not that much action until the action started at the end. It was for me quite unfortunate that we took a risk on the strategy so i pitted on Lap 1 onto the hard tyre, aiming to do the whole race with the hards. But then the red flag after meant that everyone was more or less on the same strategy, so i couldn’t get advantage of that.
“The pace felt a bit better (than in qualifying) but even with many things happening it just didn’t quite play for me. It is confusing.”
But the red flags were not the only cause of the Finn’s unsatisfactory performance.
Out of the 19 drivers to set a time in qualifying last Saturday, the 10-time Grand Prix winner was slowest of all.
The lack of performance in Australia followed up a very tough event in Saudi Arabia two weeks previously to that. He is hopeful that the investigation can find a fundamental issue within the car.
“I’m sure there’s a bit of an investigation going on with different things,” Bottas told the media.
“We see everything in the wind tunnel, and it is working as it should. I’m not convinced that’s the issue [new front wing] because it did feel like an improvement, and the numbers say that as well. Compared to the competition, we still seem a bit slow in the straight, and not bad in the corners.
“I still feel, if we get everything right, looking at the lap time we should be there or thereabouts to make it to the top 10, but clearly not.
“I didn’t feel like I could squeeze more lap time, and I’ve had decent sessions (in Melbourne) in the past, and you can feel when you are not far off the ultimate pace. But this is way, way behind that, in terms of lap time, from where it should be based on the feeling.”
Do they have an inkling on what the issues could be?
“Some ideas but we need to make sure we understand everything.”
Photo credit: @alfaromeostake
