Alfa Romeo’s 2022 Formulation 1 season has been marred by poor reliability, however that is one thing that Valtteri Bottas believes they’ll enhance upon in 2023.
By way of the primary a number of races of the 2022 Formulation 1 season, Alfa Romeo regarded like they might very properly be in rivalry for fourth place within the constructor standings with Alpine and McLaren, a marked enchancment from final yr once they completed in ninth out of 10 groups on the grid.
However these prospects have since light, and one of many main causes behind that has been poor reliability.
Valtteri Bottas is in his first season with the crew after a five-year run with Mercedes, and teammate Zhou Guanyu is a rookie after spending the final three seasons in Formulation 2.
Mixed, Bottas and Zhou have solely managed to report 24 finishes in 36 begins. Zhou has seven retirements this season, tied for probably the most in Formulation 1, and Bottas has 5. Eight of these 12 retirements have been brought on by one thing apart from a crash.
After Bottas began the season with seven prime 9 finishes in 9 races, he hasn’t scored since, and through his nine-race scoreless streak, Zhou has solely managed a single level. Due to his robust begin, Bottas nonetheless sits in tenth place within the driver standings. Zhou sits in 18th.
Alfa Romeo nonetheless sit in sixth place within the constructor standings, and in the event that they end there, it might mark a three-place enchancment from final yr, which might nonetheless make them probably the most improved crew within the first season of this new period of guidelines and laws.
Nonetheless, issues have tightened up between Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Haas, and AlphaTauri, with simply 18 factors blanketing the 4 groups on this struggle.
“Must get some factors,” Bottas informed Past the Flag when requested about his objectives for the ultimate 4 races of the 2022 season.
The season’s 4 closing races embrace the USA Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas (Sunday, October 23), the Mexico Metropolis Grand Prix at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez (Sunday, October 30), the Sao Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos Circuit (Sunday, November 6), and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit (Sunday, November 13).
“I believe now, as a crew, we have to safe sixth place within the constructors, which already is a step ahead from the final two years; the crew was ninth,” he continued. “That’s the aim for this yr. However after all, sooner or later, we positively need extra. Simply having clear, constant races, scoring factors in all the remaining races; that’s the aim.”
Bottas stays optimistic about subsequent season as properly. He believes that the one obvious difficulty of lack of reliability is one thing that may be prevented with extra testing time.
Earlier than the beginning of this season, Alfa Romeo skilled surprising points which in the end restricted their time spent testing, and that has had considerably of a domino impact on their season.
“As a crew, we’ve had fairly a couple of reliability points this yr, partly as a result of the winter testing we had was so restricted,” he mentioned. “We had many points, so we didn’t get the mileage within the automotive, and once you don’t get the mileage in testing, then points can seem afterward within the yr with sure components.
“So clearly subsequent yr goes to be a brand new automotive once more that we’ve been designing and shortly producing on the manufacturing facility in Switzerland. Hopefully the brand new automotive is quick and dependable, and that means we will positively make a step ahead.”