Formula 1 drivers work their entire careers to get the opportunity to race with a team at the very front of the field. Only then can they hope to fight for podiums, victories and, with them, a chance at the world championship.
So when Valtteri Bottas departed Mercedes – the dominant force in Formula 1 over the previous eight years – to join lowly Alfa Romeo, fresh from their worst championship position for five years, Bottas could be forgiven for feeling a little pessimistic about his prospects for the year ahead. But instead, Bottas flourished. Embracing his humble team to the fullest, Bottas emerged as a happier, more relaxed driver than he had ever been in his nine previous seasons in Formula 1.
It helped that Bottas had rocked up to Hinwil as his new team produced a genuinely good car. Despite reliability problems limiting their testing running, Bottas knew his new car had the potential to score decent points. And in the season-opener in Bahrain, he proved just that.
Missing the entire first practice session did little to slow him down and he stuck his new car on the third row of the grid. After losing a whole swathe of places at the start, he made the most of the Alfa Romeo’s impressive race pace to move all the way up to sixth by the chequered flag, thrilling his new team. On the first Sunday of the new season, he had acquired over two-thirds of Alfa Romeo’s points haul of their entire 2021 campaign.
He should have added more in Jeddah, securing eighth on the grid and running in the top ten before his car overheated, leading to him being called in to save its power unit. But over the next three rounds, Bottas would help himself to a generous serving of points, taking eighth in Melbourne and a season-best result of fifth in Imola, in spite of losing ten seconds with a cross-threaded wheel during a pit stop.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
He committed his first big mistake of the season in Miami, acclimatising himself to the brand-new circuit. His spin into the barrier in first practice ended his Friday, but despite missing out an entire hour of running, Bottas beat former team mate Lewis Hamilton to fifth on the grid. A small error out of the hairpin later in the race cost him positions to both Mercedes but he still came home in as ‘best of the rest’ in seventh.
As the season progressed, the frequency of…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at RaceFans…