Valtteri Bottas saw himself exiting qualifying in Q1 for the sixth time in 2024 in Montreal, his best lap only putting him in 17th. The Sauber driver has not made a Q2 session since the Chinese Grand Prix, where he got through to Q3 and qualified in 10th.
The Finnish driver felt as though he did not have much more to give — a gap of 0.926s to teammate Zhou Guanyu suggests he’s right — and that he was on the limit throughout his qualifying by session, so another Q1 exit was tough to come to terms with for him.
Bottas missed out on a Q2 appearance by less than a tenth, but the Finn is confident that if they can keep finding a tenth, he’ll be fighting for higher places. The times through qualifying were all quite close.
The 10-time Grand Prix winner was left annoyed by how close he was to progressing.
“It’s annoying because it’s so close, like we’re talking about less than a tenth and we would be in Q2.
“I didn’t feel like I had much left, like I was fully on the limit.
“If we can somehow find a tenth, then we’re there.”
Sauber brought upgrades into this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, one of which was a rear wing. It has proven to improve their speed, but it has not been enough overall.
This leaves Bottas and his team with concerns due to every other team improving. Despite this, no “big” upgrades are planned for the upcoming races.
“We had a new rear wing here and it is giving us a step on top speed, but obviously not enough.
“Everyone is improving, so I think we need to find something bigger.
“But in the next races there’s no big upgrades planned, small things.”
