Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo driver, spent much of the opening race at the Miami circuit in fifth position, but says that “everything changed” when the safety car came out after the incident between Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly.
Not only did that allow the two Mercedes behind him to get closer, but George Russell was able to make a ‘free’ pit stop and change to new medium tyres.
As the Silver Arrow duo battled right behind him, Bottas admitted he got distracted by her and missed the Turn 17 braking point with seven laps to go. He brushed the wall and lost several places, but recovered and finished seventh.
“Everything was going very well, I expected the race to end like this, even the safety car,” the Finn lamented after the end of the test.
“At that point, George [Russell] had the opportunity to stop for new medium tires and was closing in on the drivers in front very quickly.
“As he was passing Lewis [Hamilton], I was following them in the mirrors, because they were getting pretty close and I thought I might have to shut the door or something, and I braked a little too late.”
“I missed the apex a bit and then I went through the dirty asphalt and, although I was going slowly, I understeered against the wall. Luckily nothing broke or I had a puncture.”
Asked if he could have held off Hamilton to finish fifth without the safety car, he replied: “I don’t see why not. When George got the new tyres, then everything changed, so for me that safety car was a bit unfortunate, but that’s the way it is.”
Despite this late disappointment, Bottas said he was encouraged by the pace and consistency of his C42, especially after his heavy crash in FP1 on Friday.
“We’ve recovered well from what happened on Friday,” he said, “and the race pace was very close to Mercedes, so it’s good to see we can really fight with them.”
“It’s a shame we didn’t get fifth place, but still seventh is fine.”
Bottas, who is eighth in the world championship after managing to finish four of the five races of the season in the points zone, added that this had been a weekend in which they demonstrated a change in the mentality of Alfa Romeo to compete in the first positions of the middle zone.
“It was a race where there was no DNF in front of me. I was fighting for fifth position with this car here and we’ll see what happens in Barcelona where we’ll try to bring some new things.”
