One will start from the ninth row with the seventeenth fastest time, the other from the last position and tenth row with no time. Guanyu Zhou and Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo drivers, don’t have a reason to smile after qualifying for the British Grand Prix. The Finn, in particular, had problems in Q1 having to park the car and was relegated to last position because his car did not have a liter of oil during the scrutineering operations.
The possibility that the two drivers of the Italian-Swiss team can return to the points at Silverstone is therefore rather remote. But in the circus environment, anything can happen. Bottas starts from a balance of five points thanks to eighth place in Bahrain and tenth in Canada. The Chinese have one less result than two ninth places in Australia and Spain.
Neither of them are looking for an alibi. “The results are very disappointing – explains Bottas – because it seemed that we really had a chance to get into the top ten. I started losing power on the last lap, then the engine stalled. Eventually we figured out that it was a glitch with the fuel in the car and we are already working to fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Unfortunately this means I will start at the back of the grid in the race which is not where we deserved to be looking at our pace.”
No more revved up is Zhou’s state of mind who sees qualifying as a “lost opportunity in relation to the potential that in his opinion the car had to do well: “this weekend – he says – we had the potential to improve our performance but unfortunately we failed to maximize our chances; during the last free practice session I didn’t have any time due to a technical problem that the team immediately dealt with, in qualifying we are obviously very disappointed not to have had a chance to move forward, now we’re thinking about regrouping to arrive prepared to the race”.
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