"Better Than the Result": Bottas Reflects on Suzuka

In a race fraught with challenges, Valtteri Bottas’s 14th finish at Suzuka underscores a day of what-could-have-been for Stake F1.

Stake F1 managed only a 14th place finish at Suzuka with Valtteri Bottas. The Finn believes he could have performed better if he hadn’t been stuck behind Kevin Magnussen’s Haas and if the timing of his pit stop had been different.

“I think it was a good day in terms of pace. We stopped early for the second pit stop and found ourselves behind all the cars we were fighting against. Throughout the race, I was stuck behind Kevin, who had a very good top speed, but our pace was better than the result,” Bottas observed.

He tries to stay positive after a challenging start to the season: “At the moment, I’m disappointed not to score points, but the positive is that we made progress in terms of pace this weekend, and that’s good to see.”

Guanyu Zhou had to retire due to a mechanical issue, and the Chinese driver is visibly unhappy with the series of setbacks at the start of the year: “It’s very frustrating, with several issues over the weekend.”

“We had a problem with the gearbox, the oil was burning, the gearbox wasn’t synchronized, it’s a different issue from Melbourne but we need to resolve this as it’s a disappointing start to the season,” Zhou stated.

“It’s been tough. I was having a good race, got off to a good start, and had some good first laps, I was on pace with the guys. But we already had an issue in EL3 and in terms of preparation, it’s not ideal.”