Valtteri Bottas has rated very highly the direction that Sauber F1 has taken looking into 2024 and says that “there’s been many, many changes in the team lately. And I think positive changes”.
Photo Credit: Alfa Romeo F1 Stake
The Finnish driver is excited ahead of this new F1 campaign, after a tough 2023 where Sauber were under the guise of the Alfa Romeo for the last time. It has been a painful season for the squad led by Alessandro Alunni Bravi, scoring a poor 9th position in the Constructors’ Championship, along with a P18 and P15 for Guanyu Zhou and Valtteri Bottas in the Drivers’ Championship, respectively.
“I’m glad that it’s over now. And next year, everyone starts from zero again.”
With such an underwhelming result and car, Bottas thinks the team is right to make radical changes to produce a huge turnaround in 2024, starting with the brand new design of the car, where James Key is leading the way.
“I feel like with some new people we have, including James, there starts to be stuff happening.
“He has obviously lots of knowledge, even from this year’s McLaren, so for sure there’s good information coming from different people. So that is good to see. I think that’s what we needed.”
On the other hand, the former Mercedes driver feels like there’s a lot more to do to get the results Sauber wants ahead of its takeover by Audi:
“The main thing is we need a new car. And it needs to be different. So that’s, I would say the biggest take we take from this year. Clearly we’ve hit the end with this car’s development. So the whole concept needs to be different.
“From what I’ve seen, I’m happy, because there are differences (with the new design).
“I think that’s what we need. So many question marks, it’s still early days. But at least we’re seeing progress, and the last few weeks have been actually quite productive at the factory.”
Ultimately, Bottas also had a positive point by declaring they maximised their results when having the car to score points, but it was ultimately a very disappointing and poor season as they toiled to P9 in the Constructors’ Championship.
“I think the races that we had the pace for the points, I think we managed to get them. So ultimately the issue was we didn’t have the pure pace this year to be in top 10.
“We didn’t have a quick enough car. So that’s the name of the game.
“It’s not the last place, which is good, but it’s a small step, but still not as good as last year. I mean, it was a difficult year. We were hoping to finish better. But that’s what it is now. And now we need work for the future.”
Photo Credit: Alfa Romeo F1 Stake
