Bottas: Races at Monza are often unpredictable

Valtteri Bottas is pleased with his 14th fastest time in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix and believes he has a chance to score points in the race. His Alfa Romeo team-mate Guanyu Zhou failed to make it through the first part of qualifying, saying Carlos Sainz prevented him from warming up the tires before the final attempt.

Valttery Bottas (14th): “Qualifying turned out to be quite easy and reaching the second part can be considered a good result. The car looked good on all compounds, which was an advantage given the alternative tire distribution.

At the start of the weekend, our pace was not yet high enough, but compared to training we have taken a step forward. We have good speed on the straights, but we lose a little bit in the corners. I believe the pace of the closest rivals is similar to ours, so I hope we will compete tomorrow.

After all, this is Monza. Racing on this track is often unpredictable, so we have a chance to regain positions and get into the top ten.

Guanyu Zhou (16th): “On the pit lap before the last attempt I had to fight Carlos Sainz before the Parabolica corner – first I overtook him on the straight, then he overtook me under braking and slowed me down a bit. As a result, my tires were outside the optimum temperature at the start of the fast lap and I lost a lot of time in the first sector, where you can usually win back.

Unfortunately I fell out of the further battle, but I must admit that the team has had a difficult weekend. We made progress, but initially we were way behind – on Friday and even Saturday morning I didn’t think we had any chances in qualifying, so it’s good that we made progress.

It will be difficult to qualify for points in the race, but I am ready to fight. This weekend it’s not easy for us to show the same pace as the guys in the top ten, but it all depends on what opportunities we have. It’s necessary to avoid problems at the pit stops and I hope we can move up.”