Valtteri Bottas scored for the first time in 10 rounds as he took the final point on offer in Mexico City – but the Alfa Romeo driver wasn’t completely satisfied with his Sunday.
The Finnish driver pulled off a stunning qualifying performance to split the Ferraris with P6 on the grid, but he lost out to Charles Leclerc and Fernando Alonso at the start. Running as high as sixth before pitting on Lap 37, Bottas lost places having opted for hard tyres on his second stint, and he finished 10th to bring home his first point since the Canadian Grand Prix.
“For sure I was hoping for more, from where we started but the race pace wasn’t quite there and especially, we had difficulties on the hard tyre just to keep it up in a good temperature, that was a tricky thing – Especially on the front axle – so just sliding around a bit, and it was not easy,” he explained.
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“In the beginning, with the medium [compound], it felt like we were faster so for sure that helped, but I don’t know it was still a struggle towards the end with the hard tyre.”
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Alfa Romeo have now scored twice in the last five races and sit on 53 points – four ahead of Aston Martin, who didn’t score in Mexico – heading into the next round at Sao Paulo.
“Absolutely, it’s a clear improvement and we try to keep this momentum and keep scoring more than Aston,” said Bottas.
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His team mate Zhou Guanyu ended up 13th from 12th on the grid, but the rookie said the team had made a “step up” from Austin, where he finished 12th and Bottas spun out of the race.
“I mean, overall it’s been quite a good weekend; messy from my side,” said Zhou. “I struggled a little bit compared to Valtteri, but this track is definitely quite tricky, quite slippery, and today I think in the race, the consistency, everything was good compared to Austin.
“So we did do a step up, so we just need to keep working on the race craft. It seems like we have a better one lap pace than a race car,” concluded Zhou.
Zhou reveals Alfa Romeo used him to back up the Alpines to help Bottas into the points in Mexico
