Bottas: diffuser damaged in first turn

Valtteri Bottas expected to earn points in Las Vegas after starting from eighth position, but Sergio Perez crashed into him at the first corner and damaged the diffuser, which negatively affected the car’s speed and could not earn him any points.

His Alfa Romeo teammate Guanyu Zhou also failed to score points and finished fifteenth.

Guanyu Zhou (15th): “A good race with an interesting battle and successful overtakes, but I still didn’t manage to earn any points. I had to dodge at the start, so I couldn’t take advantage of the chaos ahead.

When the safety car entered the track, we decided to go to the pits. Then we had to do 30 laps on Medium tires – the strategy worked perfectly and allowed us to regain several places and compete with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. However, without being able to make a pit stop, the last 10 laps proved difficult. The tires became ineffective, my speed dropped and I dropped to fifteenth place.

From seventeenth place I didn’t have many chances to earn points, but at least the fight turned out to be interesting.

Now all attention is on Abu Dhabi. It’s the last race of the season and we are determined to have a good weekend.”

Valtteri Bottas (17th): “I started from a high position, but unfortunately my race was ruined in the first corner. After contact with Fernando Alonso I was hit from behind, which damaged the diffuser. This deprived them of opportunities to make progress and regain lost ground.

Then followed a long race in which I lacked pace and grip. Of course I’m disappointed because we were confident that we would get a high result today, but I didn’t have the chance to demonstrate real speed.

Positive results from the weekend include improving the fastest lap, which allowed us to reach the final. None of our direct rivals earned any points, meaning the battle will continue in the final stages of the season in Abu Dhabi. We will do everything we can to finish in the top ten and end the season with a good result.”