The Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN may look back on the Mexico City Grand Prix as an opportunity missed, after Valtteri Bottas could only claim one point after finishing tenth, whilst Zhou Guanyu claimed thirteenth.
After an unbelievably strong qualifying for the Finn, Bottas himself was expecting a strong haul of points at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez; however, it simply wasn’t to be. Bottas quickly slipped from sixth to eighth where he remained for a number of laps, before dropping to tenth late on as a result of struggling on the Hard compound tyres, something others also suffered from.
He did, nevertheless, claim a point, ending his run of races without a points finish, which dated all the way back to the Canadian Grand Prix.
Zhou had a quiet afternoon in Mexico City and was largely alone, during a race he hailed as the “toughest” of his rookie season so far. Traffic ultimately ended the Chinese driver’s momentum, resulting in him having no say over the points places.
The team did at least extend their lead over Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team to four points, in the battle for sixth in the Constructors’ Championship.
Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur hailed the point as “valuable”, but admitted he had anticipated “more” from the race.
“A point is always valuable, especially when it allows us to extend the gap on our championship rivals; of course, when starting in P6 and with the pace we showed throughout the weekend, the hopes and expectations were for more, but in the end the race didn’t really go our way.
“We seemed to have the pace to be at the front of the chasing pack, just behind the three leading teams, during our first stint, but we weren’t able to make the most of the hard tyres after Valtteri’s stop and we slowly dropped off. Zhou was on an alternative strategy, but also seemed to struggle in the second part of the race and wasn’t able to make back the places he had before the stop.
“We’ll analyse this race and see what can be done better; in the meantime, we will keep building on the speed we’ve shown on Friday and Saturday, aiming to make the most of the final two weekends of the season to finish the job properly.”