F1 | Canadian GP | Bottas excited to race in Montreal after a week of “analyzing data” to go back to start of the season’s performance
Ahead of the first practice session in Montreal since 2019, the Alfa Romeo driver explains how the last seven days have served the team to focus on understanding what went wrong in Baku.
Formula 1 is going back to Canada for the first time since 2019, and what a race is in prospect. While Red Bull managed to turn the tables on their Ferrari rivals thanks to a series of positive results.
Talking about the mid-field, if there is someone to be looking out for, that is Valtteri Bottas.
Both Alfa Romeo drivers are called upon to redeem themselves after Baku’s unexpected setback. The team left Azerbaijan with a double zero, aggravated by the retirement of Guanyu Zhou just when the Chinese driver seemed to have the top-10 within reach.
Chequered flag! 🏁 @ValtteriBottas brings his C42 home in P11, just one place short of the points. DNF for @ZhouGuanyu24 with a technical issue.
— Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN (@alfaromeoorlen) June 12, 2022
A tough day for the team, but we’ll be back stronger for the next round.#AzerbaijanGP pic.twitter.com/X7reuQu0px
The bitter Azerbaijan Grand Prix - where Alfa was foreseen as a potential challenger for big points – is now to be forgotten as Canada awaits. Asked to explain what went wrong, the Fin Valtteri Bottas said:
“We precautionary changed a lot of things in the car as we weren’t as strong as expected. But then from a mechanical point of view, we saw something was not correct. There was something off, in terms of balance, suspensions and symmetry”.
The double-header, however, will allow the team to immediately jump into the swing of things and try to go back to the strong performance that characterized the beginning of the season.
“I’m very excited to be back here in Canada, the support of the fans is always great,” commented Bottas ahead of the first free practice session of the weekend.
“Baku was a difficult race, we had a few days to analyze the data and understand what went wrong. Hopefully we can get back to the level of competitiveness we had at the start of the season.
“We know the Montreal track quite well even though it is the first time we race here with the new cars, we will work hard from the first free practice session,” Bottas said.
“It is hard to tell if this track will be favourable to us,” he continued.
“On paper, it might be good, but there are so many different aspects to consider, from the tyres to the corners and the porpoising,” he concluded.
