With Zhou Guanyu wrecking the timing of the Safety Car and Valtteri Bottas suffering damage on the opening lap, the Las Vegas Grand Prix was a case of what might have been for Alfa Romeo.
After a fantastic weekend in Vegas, Bottas qualified seventh for the race. But on the first lap, he made contact with both Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez at Turn 1, quickly ending his hopes of picking up points
The Finn managed to make it to the pits, where he replaced his front wing, but his evening was marred by a damaged diffuser. Bottas was the final competitor to cross the finish line in 17th place.
Bottas stated, “Obviously, it was disappointing but I kind of hoped that I could still recover from there,” in response to the incident that occurred on the first lap. The most significant problem, though, stemmed from the actual damage I sustained from Perez’s hit from behind.
“My diffuser broke into a few pieces, which made it difficult for me to move forward and prevented me from falling forward. Thus, it seemed like a race that lasted more than 50 laps.
When asked how much the damage affected his race, Bottas said, “It was pretty significant, like seeing the gaps, lap times, at least a second a lap.”
Zhou finished in 15th place, but he was left to lament the untimely Safety Car that had affected his first run on the hard tire due to an accident involving George Russell and Max Verstappen.
READ MORE: Williams drivers left to regret Safety Car timing in the Las Vegas Grand Prix, saying, “It killed any chance we had.”
Zhou clarified, “Starting on the hards, everything wasn’t too bad.” “I was moving at a decent clip, completing my own race, but the Safety Car arrived somewhat sooner than I had preferred. We were therefore required to [switch to] a medium tire and complete 30 laps on it.
“I don’t think anyone could have achieved that in the depravity of today.” We were battling for the points, but with ten laps remaining, we were falling so much every lap, which is regrettably where we are now.
LAS VEGAS, NV-NOV. 18: Chinese driverZhou Guanyu operates the (24) Alfa Romeo F1 C43 Ferrari on
When asked if it had been worthwhile to start the race on the hards, Zhou, who had started the race in 17th place, replied, “The hards seemed to be working quite fine but then the degradation was quite extreme.” As a result, many people even perform a two-stop since it’s more effective than changing tires. Even though things didn’t turn out exactly how we had hoped, at least we tried.
