Valtteri Bottas finished 13th in qualifying for the French Grand Prix, but the Alfa Romeo F1 driver will start 11th tomorrow thanks to penalties from Carlos Sainz and Kevin Magnussen. The Finn was satisfied with his performance but regretted a lack of pace on his C42.
« I wanted to go to Q3 today but we were missing a few tenths. My laps were good so I’m happy on a personal level, but we were lacking pace on one lap. »
« We generally progress between qualifying and the race, and in addition there are some penalties so we will start 11th. So we will have to gain some positions. »
Guanyu Zhou for his part had a very complicated qualifying session and was eliminated in Q1, in 18th place. If he will start 16th tomorrow thanks to penalties, the Chinese was very disappointed after not having managed to complete a clean lap.
« It’s a result that surprises me a lot. I made a mistake at turn 8 on my first lap, and on the last I almost lost the car completely at turn 6. So it’s a big surprise, and I’m frustrated because I think without my last mistake I could have done six tenths better but that’s the way it is We’ll have to investigate to find out why it was so difficult for me to get a lap clean today. »
« I think we shouldn’t be where we are today. I expect a tough race tomorrow with tire management, but hopefully we’ll be more competitive, especially on the straights so we can overtaking with the DRS. I’m sure we will have opportunities, and it will be interesting because there will also be faster cars starting behind us. »
