Alfa Romeo’s 2022 Components 1 season has been marred by poor reliability, however that is one thing that Valtteri Bottas believes they’ll enhance upon in 2023.
By the primary a number of races of the 2022 Components 1 season, Alfa Romeo appeared like they might very properly be in competition for fourth place within the constructor standings with Alpine and McLaren, a marked enchancment from final 12 months once they completed in ninth out of 10 groups on the grid.
However these prospects have since pale, and one of many main causes behind that has been poor reliability.
Valtteri Bottas is in his first season with the group after a five-year run with Mercedes, and teammate Zhou Guanyu is a rookie after spending the final three seasons in Components 2.
Mixed, Bottas and Zhou have solely managed to file 24 finishes in 36 begins. Zhou has seven retirements this season, tied for probably the most in Components 1, and Bottas has 5. Eight of these 12 retirements have been brought on by one thing apart from a crash.
After Bottas began the season with seven prime 9 finishes in 9 races, he hasn’t scored since, and through his nine-race scoreless streak, Zhou has solely managed a single level. Due to his sturdy begin, Bottas nonetheless sits in tenth place within the driver standings. Zhou sits in 18th.
Alfa Romeo nonetheless sit in sixth place within the constructor standings, and in the event that they end there, it will mark a three-place enchancment from final 12 months, which might nonetheless make them probably the most improved group within the first season of this new period of guidelines and laws.
Nevertheless, issues have tightened up between Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Haas, and AlphaTauri, with simply 18 factors blanketing the 4 groups on this battle.
“Must get some factors,” Bottas instructed Past the Flag when requested about his targets for the ultimate 4 races of the 2022 season.
The season’s 4 closing races embrace america Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas (Sunday, October 23), the Mexico Metropolis Grand Prix at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez (Sunday, October 30), the Sao Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos Circuit (Sunday, November 6), and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit (Sunday, November 13).
“I believe now, as a group, we have to safe sixth place within the constructors, which already is a step ahead from the final two years; the group was ninth,” he continued. “That’s the objective for this 12 months. However in fact, sooner or later, we undoubtedly need extra. Simply having clear, constant races, scoring factors in all the remaining races; that’s the objective.”
Bottas stays optimistic about subsequent season as properly. He believes that the one obtrusive situation of lack of reliability is one thing that may be prevented with extra testing time.
Earlier than the beginning of this season, Alfa Romeo skilled sudden points which finally restricted their time spent testing, and that has had considerably of a domino impact on their season.
“As a group, we’ve had fairly a couple of reliability points this 12 months, partly as a result of the winter testing we had was so restricted,” he mentioned. “We had many points, so we didn’t get the mileage within the automotive, and if you don’t get the mileage in testing, then points can seem in a while within the 12 months with sure elements.
“So clearly subsequent 12 months goes to be a brand new automotive once more that we’ve been designing and shortly producing on the manufacturing unit in Switzerland. Hopefully the brand new automotive is quick and dependable, and that method we are able to undoubtedly make a step ahead.”
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