Valtteri Bottas: If the Alfa Romeo is quick, I designed it!

Alfa Romeo

Bottas: If the Alfa Romeo is quick, I designed it!

The Finn has felt more involved in the build of this car - but only if it performs well

Paul Macdonald

Friday 10 February 2023 08:00

Valtteri Bottas has been joking about his involvement in the new Alfa Romeo for the 2023 season, saying he had a hand in building it - 'but only if it's quick'!

The Finn is entering into his second season at Alfa following his spell supporting Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes from 2017 and 2021.

Bottas, speaking at the launch of the new car, said that for the first time he felt actively involved and consulted upon in the creation process. But he cheekily added that he'll only take the credit if the car performs well.

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He said: "If the car is quick, I basically designed it. But if it’s not quick, I had nothing to do with it!

“It’s definitely been interesting. Like I’ve said multiple times in this team, I feel like my role has been very different to what I have ever had really in Formula 1. I’ve had a bit more involvement, a bit more information going through me in a way.

“Obviously, the work started early last year together. I tried to give all my experience and technical knowledge that I could from the past and then that work continued.

“Throughout last year, whether it was an issue with the car balance or whatever, we are always feeding back [information] the best that we can and when I am at the factory, I like to get updates on how things are going. And, obviously, if I ever have any ideas or questions then I ask and we speak."

Bottas added that he feels that the car is in a much better place now than it was last season.

He said: “It’s a really open situation in the team and I love to know always as much as I can about all the small details of the new car and, I think it’s fair to say, the set up direction we have gone with, the development of the car balance throughout the whole of last year has gone into the right direction and that work continues.

“We will see with this new car that, hopefully, everything is in an even better place with those situations.”