Valtteri Bottas joined the Alfa Romeo team this winter, after spending five years at Mercedes, with which he took 10 wins and 58 podium finishes in a total of 101 grands prix.
His current team is in stark contrast to the Germans, as Alfa Romeo could only finish ninth in the 2021 constructors’ championship after scoring 13 points. The only team to fall behind the Swiss was Haas, who failed to score points despite their efforts.
The structure led by Frédéric Vasseur opted to change its driver line-up entirely, choosing Bottas to inherit the lead role from Kimi Raikkonen, and Guanyu Zhou, coming up from Formula 2, to replace Antonio Giovinazzi.
Although Bottas says he “hasn’t given up yet” on the big goal of winning a drivers’ world championship, he admits being able to consistently score points with his new team would be a great result.
“I still haven’t given up on the goal I have, which is to be able to win a World Cup one day, so that will always be the dream,” he said. “But for now, I dream that we can take a good step forward as a team, and I think consistently scoring points would already be a great achievement, I even secretly dream of getting on the podium in an Alfa Romeo.”
The pilot hopes that the great change in the Formula 1 regulations for 2022 will be able to maintain the differences between the 10 teams, so that teams like Alfa Romeo can benefit from the setbacks of the rivals, and he is convinced that the small ” will have great opportunities” this season.
“I think it’s going to be exciting because with what I’ve learned from the regulations, there are a lot of things that are restricted in terms of what you can do in each area,” explained the Finn.
“Between the teams, there’s not a huge difference you can create with the car designs, both aerodynamically and mechanically. So I think the whole season is going to be hopefully a lot closer.”
“We are going to see different drivers on the podium, different orders in the top 10, small teams that will have big opportunities.”
“So I think in the full season, we’re going to see something pretty exciting. I think it’s going to be good to look at and good to drive.”
