Valtteri Bottas urges Alfa Romeo to 'figure out' lack of pace

Bottas in Saudi Arabia — Photo: © LAT Images

Australian Grand Prix

Bottas urges Alfa Romeo to 'figure out' lack of pace

The Finnish driver went pointless in Melbourne after a 'lonely' race

Lauren Sneath

Thursday 6 April 2023 19:05

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Valtteri Bottas has called on Alfa Romeo to "figure out" the car’s pace as the team is “definitely off the pace from where we thought we should be”.

The Finn was one of only two drivers to fail to score points at a chaotic Australian Grand Prix that featured eight retirements.

After three races, Bottas is 11th in the drivers' standings with just four points scored, all of which were registered at the season-opening Bahrain race.

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The 33-year-old driver took a risk with his strategy at Albert Park an pitted early, only to be thwarted by a record number of red flag interruptions.

“There was not that much action until the action started at the end," said Bottas.

“It was for me quite unfortunate that we took a risk on the strategy. I pitted on lap one onto the hard tyre, and (planned) to do the whole race with the hards.

“But then the red flag after meant that everyone else was pretty much on the same strategy, so I couldn’t take advantage of that.

“Then I pitted for the softs before the end just before the red flag came, and then everybody was on the soft again. I just didn’t have much luck on the red flags today.”