Valtteri Bottas hopes Alfa Romeo can maintain a year-long battle with Mercedes after being “surprised” by their early-season problems.
Few imagined the Finn would find himself racing against his former team given their very different positions on the grid last year, but the combination of a strong Alfa and an underperforming Mercedes has meant just that.
And while Bottas has continued his run of Q3 appearances dating back to Australia 2017 at the opening two races of 2022, he was as shocked as anyone when Lewis Hamilton failed to reach Q2 in Jeddah.
“It’s weird to see, I would guess he had some kind of issue, I don’t know,” he said.
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More broadly, Valtteri hopes to use the carrot of fighting Mercedes to push Alfa Romeo into the fight for potentially P3 in the Constructors’ standings.
“It is surprising to see them struggling, but it’s also nice to be able to battle with them,” he added.
“I think this was kind of the best-case scenario for our first season together that I could ever imagine, with the information I had.
Eyes on the prize ? pic.twitter.com/HwYovBtJpW
— Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN (@alfaromeoorlen) March 27, 2022
“I think that should be the goal now, aspiring to be the best of the rest is a good motivation and good goals. I hope that in the end, we can fight for fifth place in the race, that would be a big step for us.”
And as for his decision to join Alfa Romeo, Bottas so far has zero regrets.
“I’m very happy with the decision I made, and also in general, so yes, I’m enjoying it,” he said.
“If we can keep improving the car, there’s no doubt that in the future we should be able to always fight for Q3 and top ten, that’s good to see.”