“We were not expecting Barcelona to suit us too well” – Alfa Romeo’s Frédéric Vasseur

Frédéric Vasseur was delighted to see Valtteri Bottas rating eight extra factors for Alfa Romeo F1 Group ORLEN in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, a race the place they didn’t suppose they might be that aggressive forward of the weekend.

Bottas ran as excessive as a fourth throughout the race on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, however a two-stop technique gamble didn’t repay as he was powerless to defend from the recovering Carlos Sainz Jr. and Lewis Hamilton, who each made three pit stops, within the closing laps to drop to sixth.

Nevertheless, Vasseur, the Group Principal at Alfa Romeo, was filled with reward for Bottas for bringing house one other good end – his fifth high ten end result within the opening six races – and rating one other good haul of factors for the staff.

“We skilled one other race wherein we confirmed simply how fast we will be, and to deliver house eight extra factors, ending simply behind the entrance runners, is a constructive end result,” mentioned Vasseur.

“We will be grateful for our efficiency, much more so on condition that we weren’t anticipating Barcelona to swimsuit us too nicely, so we will be assured we will be aggressive on each race weekend.

“Valtteri did a wonderful race, with out placing a wheel flawed and managing his automotive nicely. In the long run, he was powerless to cease Sainz and Hamilton, on brisker tyres, passing him, however we’ll take sixth.”

Vasseur admitted nevertheless that the retirement that befell Zhou Guanyu meant the Spanish weekend was not a whole success, and it’s important for the staff to handle the problems and provides the Chinese language driver an opportunity at scoring factors within the upcoming occasions.

“Sadly, we can’t be blissful concerning the technical subject that stopped Zhou,” mentioned Vasseur. “He was doing very well, shifting up the locations and heading to the highest ten, when the automotive let him down.

“We have to deal with these points and repair them, as we have now the potential to be scoring with each automobiles in each race.”