Mexico could have been ‘different story’ with soft tyre final stint

Bottas managed to choose up his first level for the reason that Canadian Grand Prix in June by finishing 10th at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Sunday, however had appeared set for a much bigger haul after lining up sixth on the grid.

Bottas dropped to eighth initially, however managed to maintain Alpine’s Esteban Ocon at bay by way of the opening stint earlier than making the swap to laborious tyres on Lap 39.

Bottas was not solely undercut by Ocon, who had made the identical tyre swap seven laps earlier, however he additionally misplaced locations to McLaren drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris by way of the ultimate stint, Ricciardo having gone on a late cost with softs.

The Finn got here below late stress from Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon, each of whom additionally went from mediums to softs for the ultimate stint, however managed to carry on to P10.

Bottas, who on Wednesday was introduced for the 2023 Race of Champions in Sweden, mentioned his race proved to be “tough, particularly the second stint with the laborious tyre” as he skilled comparable struggles to different drivers who additionally ran hards for the second half of the race.

“I simply couldn’t get the tyre to work, particularly the entrance axle,” Bottas defined. “It was under the working vary on a regular basis.

“I feel if I might do the race once more I might for certain go for the delicate tyre [in the final stint]. There have been some vehicles that had been actually flying on the delicate tyre.”

Fernando Alonso, Alpine A522, leads Lando Norris, McLaren MCL36, and Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo C42

Picture by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

Bottas defined that he tried the laborious tyre in FP1 and that it had felt “half respectable”, though he admitted it was “straightforward to say afterwards” he had taken the incorrect choice on which tyre to make use of.

However he took some consolation from scoring the purpose on a day when Aston Martin didn’t make any additional inroads on Alfa Romeo within the combat for sixth within the constructors’ championship.

Aston Martin’s current surge of kind had seen the hole fall to simply three factors forward of Mexico, just for Bottas’s consequence to present Alfa Romeo a bit of additional respiration room with two races to go this yr.

“With one other tyre it may need been a special story,” he mentioned.

“No less than it’s one level. I feel it’s been 10 races since I final scored factors. In order that’s one thing, and not less than we scored greater than Aston.”

Requested if Alfa Romeo’s tempo in Mexico was due to its late-season upgrades or just extra track-specific, Bottas expressed his optimism about preserving the shape going.

“We’ll see within the subsequent races,” he mentioned.

“We had been in Q3 in Austin and may have been within the factors, so I hope it’s going to be like this for the final two races. I see no motive why we shouldn’t be there.”