Things are never dull in Formula 1.
The biggest question facing Alfa Romeo right now
After a lackluster start, what does Alfa Romeo need to turn things around?
Photo by Bryn Lennon - Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
Mark Schofield is a former college quarterback and attorney covering the NFL and F1.
This was supposed to be a quiet week off, following a back-to-back in Austria and Britain, and ahead of another back-to-back in Hungary and the Netherlands. But a thunderbolt from the clouds came down on Monday, with the shocking news that Daniel Ricciardo was coming back to the grid.
After just ten races, AlphaTauri and Red Bull had seen enough from Nyck de Vries. The rookie was out, and Ricciardo was in, on loan to AlphaTauri starting with the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Still, with F1 on a bye week following the British Grand Prix it is time to take stock of just where each of the ten teams are ahead of Budapest. Working through the field from the bottom of the Constructors’ standings to the top, what is the biggest question facing each team right now?
Having kicked things off with AlphaTauri, it is time to turn to the team above them in the standings, Alfa Romeo. Can Alfa Romeo get something out of this upgrade package?
Photo by Vince Mignott/MB Media/Getty Images
It has been a difficult year for Alfa Romeo, who currently sit ninth in the Constructors’ standings, ahead of only AlphaTauri.
A team that has just made a driver switch.
Their best result came at the start of the year, with an eighth-place finish from Valtteri Bottas in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. Since then points have been scarce, and upgrades have been slow in helping. The main issue for the team early in the year was a lack of straight-line speed, as noted by Bottas ahead of the Miami Grand Prix. “Straight-line speed hasn’t really been a strength for us,” explained Bottas back in May. “I think we made a bit of a step in Baku on the straight-line speed with a different wing, but then obviously it means that you compromise the corner.”
There were hopes that an upgrade package the team brought to Silverstone would provide a solution, but as the team left the British Grand Prix behind, they left without any points to show for their efforts. That was largely due to technical problems on Saturday that forced Bottas to start at the back of the field and saw teammate Zhou Guanyu limited in Q1, qualifying only 18th.
While they made up some ground on Sunday, they have yet to see the full effort from their work at the factory.
“Today, we must pay tribute to our team and drivers for the job done, in a race that wasn’t set to be easy for us: overall, we have recovered ten positions, eight with Valtteri and two with Zhou, as proof that if we carry out a perfect race, we can get into the fight for points,” said Team Representative Alessandro Alunni Bravi following the British Grand Prix. “Yesterday was not our day, and of course, starting from the back is never easy, but today we showed an improvement in the race pace compared to previous events, which gives us confidence for the next two races before the summer break.”
“There, our target will be to further optimise our new package, in order to be competitive from Friday onwards and recover positions in the Constructors’ Championship,” he added.
The question may be whether this upgrade package will merely allow Alfa Romeo to keep pace with their competition, or whether it will allow them to actually make up ground. At Silverstone, Bottas admitted that the team expected to be better this season, and now they are trying their best to make up for lost time.
“I think at this point we are approaching halfway through the season and we’ve not been able to really move up the order,” said Bottas at the British Grand Prix. “We were expecting to be better than last year.”
“Our direct competitors brought upgrades, and comparing with AlphaTauri, Haas, we can be fighting with them, we are faster than them,” added the Alfa Romeo driver. “I think the only difficulty is with Williams at the moment. That they were performing very strong, they were fighting with Ferrari and even Aston Martin. They seem to be quite strong the last couple of races, we have to see if that continues like this.”
“But for us, we can see that all the gaps are quite small and from race to race there can be a bit of a fluctuation. So on our side we will just keep pushing and optimising our package and on the driving and everything race to race and it’s only two points to them,” Bottas continued. “So we’re confident still from now until [August] shutdown, it’s possible to overtake Haas and Williams. That’s our aim.”
Will that new package finally deliver on that goal?
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