In Barcelona, Valtteri Bottas came close to reaching the qualifying final – falling eleven hundredths of a second short of entering the top ten. However, the Sauber driver is satisfied with the results of the session and expects to earn his first points of the season in the race.
His partner Guanyu Zhou is also pleased with the results of the session – although he only showed the fifteenth fastest time, he qualified from the first part of qualifying for the first time this season.
Valtteri Bottas (12th): “It’s nice to see both cars in the second part of qualifying. The car drove well on the track and looked good all weekend. At this stage the car is definitely better than in previous Grands Prix. There is no doubt that the new products that the team brought to Barcelona have played their role, allowing us to take a small but concrete step.
I think we achieved the best possible result today, given the pace at the moment. We’re not that far away from reaching the final – that’s encouraging.
I think we have the best chance to earn points that we have had this season, but the job is only half done. Tomorrow we will have to give the best of ourselves and convert the starting position into a place in the top ten at the finish.”
Guanyu Zhou (15th): “It’s nice to be back in the second part of qualifying. A good result, but no less important: I regained confidence in the car.
We knew it wouldn’t be easy to get out of the second half because we had already used a new set of tires in the first session, which meant we had to run on break-in tires for the first run, but we can’t complain about that end result.
This weekend the team consciously decided to take a step back and start all over again. The last few races have been difficult, so we made some big changes, including changing my chassis. And now everything has become much better.
I’m happy that we took a step forward because the whole team got faster this weekend. We will continue to work hard to convert the starting positions into a good result at the finish, although we are well aware that the opponents in the top ten are very strong.”
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.
