In Saturday’s qualifying, the Alfa Romeo drivers fell out of contention after the first session – Valtteri Bottas showed a 16th result, Guanyu Zhou – 19th. In the team report he only mentioned that they had to “compromise on the settings”, but in an interview with Viaplay he explained in more detail what exactly happened.
“On Friday the car behaved better, but then we had to change the settings a bit. The ground clearance with which we drove during training turned out to be too low and there was a risk that we could be disqualified after the finish of the race,” said the Finnish racer, by which he meant that the wear of the control rod on the underside of the car during a such ground clearance would exceed the amount permitted by regulations. “So we had to raise the car and this led to a reduction in downforce and much poorer grip.
There’s a long race ahead of us on Sunday and it won’t be easy for us. But in terms of pace we are about the same level as the cars starting next to me. Let’s see how events develop, and of course we will do everything in our power.
It’s a shame that everything is going this way, but in Suzuka we will try to get more out of the car.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
