Bottas warns of worrying Alfa Romeo trend after engine issue

Valtteri Bottas after his retirement in Spain — Photo: © LAT Images

Spanish Grand Prix

Bottas warns of worrying Alfa Romeo trend after engine issue

Bottas has failed to complete Friday running two days in a row

Ewan Gale

Friday 20 May 2022 23:00

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Valtteri Bottas is hopeful Alfa Romeo's trend of "tricky Fridays" will not halt the team's charge up F1's pecking order after an engine problem cut short his second practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Finn pulled across to the inside of the first corner to trigger the only session neutralisation of the day as the virtual safety car was deployed to remove his stricken car.

Smoke could be seen puffing from the rear of the car before the digital dashboard on his steering wheel shut itself off.

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Addressing the issue, Bottas, who simply said over the team radio "something's broke" when pulling off track, later said: "I did smell the smoke and before that I heard a noise which didn't sound good.

"We don't know exactly but I would suspect something with the engine."

The problem marks the second race weekend in a row Bottas has spent time in the pits on a Friday after his crash in Miami consigned him to the sidelines for FP2 two weeks ago.

"It seems a bit of a trend that we have tricky Fridays and we don't get much running which is unfortunate but I am sure we can bounce back," he added.

"The positive thing [is], the one lap I had on the mediums, actually the car felt pretty good so we can work up from there."

Alfa Romeo eradicate porpoising issue

Porpoising has been the key issue for the majority of the grid to get on top of in the new era of F1, with many teams adding upgrades at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to seek improvement.

On whether Alfa Romeo has found an answer to the persistent bouncing, Bottas replied: "At least for us, it didn't seem like an issue.

"We definitely started quite cautiously in practice one with the upgrades and we are getting more and more towards the optimal and still no issues.

"We will discover more tomorrow."