Alfa Romeo have become the first team to hit the track with their 2023 car, with the new C43 turning laps at a shakedown in Barcelona on Friday morning.
Valtteri Bottas – about to begin his 11th season in Formula 1 – was behind the wheel of the car in the morning, with team mate Zhou Guanyu also set to take it for a spin later in the day, as he prepares for his sophomore campaign in the sport.
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While it is the same driver pairing as last season for Alfa Romeo, it was a winter of change for the Swiss based squad. Team Principal Fred Vasseur moved to Ferrari, with Andreas Seidl coming over from McLaren to take over as CEO of Sauber, and Alessandro Aluni Bravi appointed to the new role of Team Representative.
There have also been some noticeable changes made to their race car, with the C43 being described as an “evolution” of last year’s C42. Alfa Romeo revealed that they had overseen “a major change to the architecture” of the rear end of their car, and Bottas is hoping it brings better results this season, after their P6 finish last season.
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Speaking at the team’s launch on Tuesday, Bottas said: “We need to achieve more, it’s simple as that, we always need to aim for better, aim for higher, the whole team, and myself included.
“We always need to keep improving, that’s what drives us, so, expecting… better consistency, more points, better results – but how to get there, that’s the tricky bit. That comes from all the details and working really, really hard together as a team.”
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Team mate Zhou put in some strong performances in his rookie season, but the Chinese racer admits he and his team have a few areas they must improve on this year.
“From my side, I think as a team it’s quite clear, it’s the first 100 metres [at the start],” said Zhou, when asked what he was looking to improve this year.
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“[In the] beginning of the year I was improving my one lap pace, to get the confidence to be absolutely pushing on the limit, not making mistakes in quali, and we were able to reach that throughout the season.
“But [at] the starts, we were the team that couldn’t get the most consistency out of it. As a team we’ve been working super hard since the last winter. Hopefully, we will be making a further step up, and try to be more consistent on my side.”
After their shakedown in Barcelona is complete, Alfa Romeo will be heading to Bahrain for pre-season testing on February 23-25, ahead of the season-opening Grand Prix at the Sakhir venue, a week later, on March 5.
