Valtteri Bottas: Sometimes I miss aggressiveness

Valtteri Bottas didn’t start the 2023 season in the best way, but the problems that are bothering him now are a bit different from last season, when he didn’t always manage to start well, but that’s another story.

In an interview with the Finnish newspaper Urheiluhti, he spoke about the details of the race start procedure in an Alfa Romeo car. He switched to the Swiss team last year after five seasons with Mercedes, which was the strongest in Formula 1 at the time. Valtteri naturally moved from the front row to the middle of the pack and he had to adapt to the new situation.

Valtteri Bottas: “You could say that for me it was like an alarm went off when I saw how much action was happening at the start, and that there were a lot more drivers willing to take risks. In the last five years I have weaned myself from it.

If you start a race from the front two rows there are usually only two or three cars to focus on, but if you get into the middle of the fight there could easily be five or six cars to keep an eye on.

In addition, these cars in the middle of the pack are usually about equal in speed capabilities. If you lose a few positions in the beginning, your life will become much more complicated. That has happened to me many times over the past year.

If you are in the front, especially if you start from the front row, everything is much easier, because there is always enough free space on the track. But if you leave deep in the peloton, there is already much less space around.

But the need to keep an eye on rivals from neighboring positions is just one of the many tasks a driver must perform before and during the start of the Grand Prix. The serious work begins as soon as the car leaves the pits and heads for the grid.
“I’m trying to get a sense of what’s going on with the car and I’m warming up the brakes,” Valtteri continued. – Based on what you felt on this circle, you can make some last minute adjustments in the settings, although in reality we are only talking about the front wing.

For example, if I feel too much understeer, I can press the button to slightly increase the angle of attack. Also on some circuits you can train the start at the exit of the pit lane. To some extent, it is also useful to get a feel for the car.

But the real rehearsal of the starting procedure is when we get to the warm-up lap. The most important thing is to warm up the tires well enough before you start. We warm up the front tires so that they normally hold the track already in the first corner, while we have to work with the rear tires, focus on the race, try to get them to the temperature that the engineers are reporting.

When we go to the starting field, we adjust some settings with the switches on the handlebars. It is necessary to achieve the correct brake balance for the first turn. Usually it has to be moved to the rear wheels a little more than necessary for the race, because while we wait for the start, the front tires have time to cool down noticeably.

Then we put the engine in the start position and wait for the traffic lights to go out. For the start to be successful, you must first release the clutch about 40%, after which about 2% remains until the time of setting.

Last year we had a purely physical problem: if the clutch was not released enough, it would vibrate, even if you were only three or four percent wrong. And when these vibrations started, the car could easily destabilize, but now everything should work better.

I have to train to release the clutch at home almost every day: I do 30 to 50 repetitions of this movement. On race day, before the pit lane opens, we also practice this procedure.”
This season, the engineers of the Hinwil team have made changes to the clutch design and the free play has increased, but Bottas did not mention any specific parameters.

“The starting moment is quite nervous for me, because your job is to gain back some positions and try not to let any of the opponents get ahead. Sometimes I miss a little aggressiveness,” he admits. – But it is always necessary to calculate the risks in order not to lose the race already in the first corner. This is always a very important moment, but I try not to let it happen.”