Vasseur: Bottas and Zhou are real team players

After the Canadian Grand Prix, some teams’ leaders had more reasons to celebrate than their rivals, and one of them, of course, was Frederic Vasseur. Both Alfa Romeo drivers finished in the top ten, and after a fine imposed on Fernando Alonso, they climbed another line-up in the final protocol. Vasseur commented on the weekend’s events in Montreal and participated in the F1 Nation podcast from the championship’s official website.

Q: Your team again performed very well – both riders earned points…
Frederick Wasser: Yes, the weekend as a whole was great as we showed good pace in qualifying and had a great race. I am more than happy with the team and very happy for Guanyu Zhou, who performed well and earned a lot of points. I think this will be another step forward for him, he will progress faster and faster.

Q: Let’s talk about Zhou, he spent the last few races really well, in Baku in particular he was able to get ahead of Bottas in qualifying, and in Montreal he went to the final for the first time. What about his progress since the start of the season?
Frederick Wasser: I believe he is gradually gaining speed. To start with, we gave him the task of getting into the second qualifying session, and he already did that in the very first stage of the season in Bahrain.

In the races he always behaved very confidently and on a few occasions he was able to score points, but he was hampered by reliability issues. At the same time, he always has a positive attitude, is always ready to act in the interest of the team and I think 8th place in Montreal can be considered a great achievement.

Q: And they worked well with Valtteri?
Frederick Wasser: That’s too weak to say! More than not bad, because both are real team players, which helps us a lot, and there is a great atmosphere within the team.

Q: It seems that the Alfa Romeo car is very fickle about the settings because in some races you show pretty good results, in other cases you can’t say this – is it?
Frederick Wasser: I do not think so. Only in the middle group of teams is there a very sharp rivalry, and the difference between 6th-7th place and, say, 18th or even 20th is quite small. It’s worth making a very small mistake when driving or choosing settings – and you instantly roll back ten positions. Look at Pierre Gasly and Sebastian Vettel: in the third practice they were capable of a high pace, but fell out of the fight in qualifying in the first session.

But the tougher the competition, the better for the championship as a whole. And if someone finishes in 16th place on a weekend, don’t jump to conclusions. Something has just gone wrong for this driver, but he will be able to recover in the next leg.