Alfa Romeo F1 has revealed what trouble Valtteri Bottas hit in Hungary after the Finn was forced to retire late in the race. Bottas was outside the top 10, however, when the breakdown occurred.
“We had a technical problem in the fuel system we are studying, so it’s not ideal,” said Xevi Pujolar, the Hinwil team’s on-track engineering manager.
« There was no warning. Everything was fine until this round. The first thing we saw was that the guys reported it on the data, Valtteri reported straight away that « He was losing power and that’s it. We had to stop straight away. »
More worryingly, Pujolar admits that the problem is unknown, and that it is the first time that it occurs on the Alfa Romeo C42: « From what it appears at the moment, this was a new issue and we need to understand why this happened. »
Hard tires perform better than expected
Pujolar assures that the strategy of opting for hard tires was not wrong, with the Alfa Romeo C42 performing much better on this compound than other cars in the field.
« For us the hard guys were good, we didn’t have any big problems. We had more problems later with the blue flags and also because the riders with fresher tires were catching us, but it wasn’t not the hard tire problem. »
« The problem was that we lost too many positions on the first lap and got stuck in traffic. That meant we couldn’t get higher up the track as we had planned. »
Bottas between frustration and encouragement
Bottas was disappointed that the car had failed, but admitted that not having lost points helped to be less frustrated. Although he is happy that the car is fast, he hopes that it will show some solidity for the rest of the season.
« For sure we lack reliability. In terms of pace, we were a bit better this weekend than in previous races, so that’s positive, but yes, we need to finish the races. »
« It would have been even more of a shame in Hungary if we were close to scoring points again and had this problem. So we focus first on reliability and then on performance as well. »
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