Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo, Imola, 2022

Bottas grateful to team after ‘perfect’ chassis change leads to sprint points

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In the round-up: Valtteri Bottas says he his car “worked perfectly” after his Alfa Romeo mechanics swapped his chassis before the sprint race

In brief

Bottas thankful to team after ‘perfect’ chassis change

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Bottas has given credit to the Alfa Romeo mechanics after their rebuilt his C42 from scratch following the technical problems that put a stop to his qualifying on Friday.

Bottas missed the entirety of the crucial second practice session while his team changed his chassis, but eventually took to the start of the sprint race from eighth on the grid, eventually finishing seventh.

“I want to thank the team who did a great job putting the car back together,” said Bottas. “There were so many things they had to change but they were brilliant and thankfully everything worked perfectly. I always trust the crew to get the car right, but they had a big task ahead of them and they delivered.

“We had a strong car as well, apart from the wheelspin I had at the start, then it was actually a really, really nice sprint race and we had good pace.”

Ocon “on the back foot” without Alpine floor update

Esteban Ocon believes that his pace this weekend is compromised compared to his team mate due to running and older specification of floor on his car.

Alpine have given Fernando Alonso an updated floor, while Ocon continues to use the launch-specification design. Alonso finished ninth in yesterday’s sprint, while Ocon was seven places behind his team mate in 16th.

“I think Fernando’s car, with the updates, was performing very good this weekend so far,” said Ocon.

“I think tyre deg has played a big part on his side today. On my side, I’m a bit on the back foot, but we have a different car, so that’s what’s to be expected.”

Armstrong had to rely on trackside TVs at restart

Formula 2 Imola sprint race winner Marcus Armstrong had no radio throughout the event, meaning he had to work out when a Virtual Safety Car was ending from trackside screens.

“I quite enjoyed it, it was very peaceful,” said Armstrong. “I was sort of alone with my thoughts, so to speak.

“But then again, it’s always nice to know the gap behind and what’s happening generally. Luckily, there’s a lot of TVs around the track so I sort of keep an eye on all the TVs when I’m driving what’s going on. I could see that [Daruvala] was never really that close on the TV, so I didn’t stress too much.”

The virtual safety car restart, however, he said was “quite stressful.”

“You need your engineers to tell you ‘the Virtual Safety Car is ending, be ready to go.’ And in this case, I had no clue, and so I was always sitting in second gear ready to go. Even as the Virtual Safety Car was still going.

“So that was stressful. Luckily, it went green when there was a TV above, so quite lucky.

Three drivers penalised after Formula 3 sprint race

Kaylen Frederick was given a five-second time penalty for colliding with Ido Cohen, who he was attempting to overtake into Tamburello. Cohen himself then received a five-second penalty for leaving the track four times at Variante Alta and Rivazza. Enzo Trulli also received a penalty in connection to Cohen, after Trulli overtook him at the beginning of a yellow-flagged sector.

Frederick dropped from eighth to 16th after the penalty was applied, Trulli from 21st to 22nd and Cohen remained in 23rd.

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Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

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Comment of the day

@Red-andy wonders if ulterior motives lie behind two-times world champion Mika Hakkinen’s recent comments on Lewis Hamilton:

Obviously Mika just wants the Mercedes seat to open up so he can finally come back from his sabbatical.
@red-andy

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Mags, Tim and Pete Walker!

On this day in motorsport

  • On this day in 1983 ex-F1 race and multiple Daytona 24 Hours winner Rolf Stommelen died in a crash at Riverside

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...
Hazel Southwell
Hazel is a motorsport and automotive journalist with a particular interest in hybrid systems, electrification, batteries and new fuel technologies....

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8 comments on “Bottas grateful to team after ‘perfect’ chassis change leads to sprint points”

  1. Profile Photo

    Gabriel (@gabf1)
    24th April 2022, 0:34

    Love that from Marcus Armstrong. Got to use anything you’ve got while you’re in the car. If it’s trackside screens, then so be it. Resourcefulness to “drive around a problem” is a key skill!

  2. Profile Photo

    Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
    24th April 2022, 2:51

    I disagree with Martin, I don’t fancy this premature race, I actually enjoy spooning though.

  3. Profile Photo

    Jere (@jerejj)
    24th April 2022, 6:38

    So that’s partly why Ocon couldn’t climb through the field, although getting stuck in a DRS train was unhelpful.

    Brundle’s tweet is weird, but COTD’s joke is good.

  4. Fab
    24th April 2022, 7:37

    So Bottas maybe made the right move 😊
    He’s in front of the two mercs.

  5. Profile Photo

    Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
    24th April 2022, 9:02

    Now I know that brundle very much dislikes these sprints, we know what he really thinks when he next is forced to say how epic they are when he’s live on sky…

    My main complaint isn’t just on the sprint. What was more annoying than the sprint itself was the fake cheers. Just how awful it was to hear the same pre-recorded cheer played twice within a few seconds of each other as leclerc passed Verstappen for the lead. You could see the crowed in the distance and the sound did not match their actions… Does someone really just sit there with buttons to press to include the sound in the live feed when random things happen? It is worse canned laughter as it obviously isn’t thought out or planned in advance. There have been times when next to nothing has happened and you hear the same cheer. F1 is becoming like annoying radio stations with all these silly bleeps and artificial sound effects.

    All these things that Liberty Media do to try and get the sport bigger and more “EPIC!” are just really irritating.

    1. S
      24th April 2022, 11:59

      the fake cheers.

      Yeah…. For most of the first lap, too. They were doing it last year too.

      Does someone really just sit there with buttons to press to include the sound in the live feed when random things happen?

      Yes, they do. They do other stuff too, though.
      Personally I preferred when there was no crowds at the track, as they couldn’t get away with it then.

      As for Brundle… He’s another one of those old guys who’ve been in F1 for ever. His personal opinion is exactly what I’d expect it to be. Would be a little nicer if his professional opinion and his personal one were the same, though.
      Paul Di Resta was pretty happy with yesterday’s sprint… I don’t mind if we hear less from Brundle. He’s not a great as he used to be.

    2. Profile Photo

      Esploratore (@esploratore1)
      24th April 2022, 23:32

      Wow, I must be easily deceived, I thought those were real cheers, and they seemed impressive!

  6. Profile Photo

    EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
    24th April 2022, 9:22

    No disrespect to @red-andy (in fact I like the humour) but surely there were more thought provoking posts for COTD.

Comments are closed.