Valtteri Bottas is relieved with the gap between races as he wants to sit with Alfa Romeo and understand the shortcomings.
Having had a strong start in Bahrain, Bottas tailed off in Saudi Arabia and Australia. While in Jeddah, it was down to damage, the weekend in Melbourne was more due to lack of pace even though he was hampered by the red flags at wrong times.
Contrast with this teammate Zhou Gunayu, who scored in Australia and has fared well in qualifying too, Bottas is looking for answers despite the updates Alfa Romeo had in Melbourne. The Finn has some ideas but is glad they have time off to work on it.
“There was not that much action until the action started at the end,” said Bottas to media. “It was for me quite unfortunate that we took a risk on the strategy. I pitted on Lap 1 onto the hard tyre, and aimed to do the whole race with the hards. But then the red flag after meant that everyone else was pretty much on the same strategy, so I couldn’t take advantage of that.
“Then I pitted for the softs before the end just before the red flag came, and then everybody was on the soft again. I just didn’t have much luck on the red flags. It has been a difficult weekend. Definitely off the pace from where we thought we should be. So, something to look into.
“I’m actually glad that there is a bit of time before the next race so we can figure out something. We have some ideas. Some ideas. But we need to make sure we fully understand everything,” summed up Bottas, who will certainly need to step it up in Baku as teammate Guanyu is seemingly in a groove now with good fights.
“Obviously at the end of the day it was a good result for me to grab my first points of the season,” said Guanyu. “But, if the red flag didn’t come, we could have finished maybe P8, P7. I was happy with the progress we made because we were starting at the back of the grid.
“The car was a lot more racy compared to qualifying, so I feel like I was able to fight in the mix with the guys around me. So, I was happy. For us as a team we haven’t been the most consistent midfield team so far. But there is plenty of work happening, I’m sure we can get over it, and to be working through this reasonably long April break, and hopefully come back stronger, and to be keep fighting together with the others.”