Bottas: on Saturday we have to finish everything we didn’t have time for

At the very beginning of Friday’s practice for the Belgian Grand Prix, Valtteri Bottas’ Alfa Romeo suffered technical problems, causing him to miss almost the entire first session. However, the Finnish driver was generally satisfied with the balance of the car, although he only set an eighteenth time in the second practice session.

His teammate Guanyu Zhou finished the session twelfth and is also happy with the car.

Guanyu Zhou (12th): “It’s nice to be behind the wheel again after the summer holidays. The car drives well enough on tracks with little downforce. Today everything went well and I was quite comfortable in the cockpit. Of course there are some points that need to be improved tomorrow, but in general I am satisfied.

In the first and second practice we evaluated different settings, so during the day we made a lot of changes to the car to be as prepared as possible for tomorrow’s qualifying and Sunday’s race.

Today went without a hitch and I hope that this weekend we can take a step forward compared to the previous races and get back to the previous form.

Valtteri Bottas (18th): “I am happy with the balance of the car, although I missed the first practice and had to make up for lost time. Today, the main limiting factor is the grip of tires, especially Hard, which are very different from Soft. There is no need to worry though – tomorrow we will solve this problem by doing a few more laps.

In the first session my car had a leak in the hydraulic system and in the second session the rain intervened. I hope to be able to work on the track in the last training. We need to have a problem free day to finish what we didn’t have time for today.