Zhou Stumbles in Q1 as Bottas Touts Gains

Bottas highlights team’s strides in performance despite narrowly missing Q3; Zhou faces setback.

Valtteri Bottas narrowly missed advancing to Q3, finishing just under a tenth behind Lewis Hamilton, who secured the tenth position. The Stake F1 driver isn’t frustrated by starting 12th, as he believes this result highlights progress for his team, and he is pleased with it.

“I am, indeed. After that final lap, I felt I couldn’t have done any better; it’s a satisfying feeling. For us, it’s acceptable. Looking at recent qualifiers, it’s positive; we’ve made progress since the last event,” stated Bottas, who is optimistic about a top-10 finish in the race.

“I believe so; we are in a good position to finish in the points. It’s a track where overtaking is challenging, but defending should be quite straightforward. We’ll see if we can also be aggressive in our tactics.”

Guanyu Zhou was eliminated in Q1, struggling on the drying track: “I wasn’t too surprised as I had significant balance issues on the last lap. We had adapted to wet conditions, but it became more challenging as the track dried. With only two-tenths of a difference, there was a chance to advance.”

The Chinese driver hopes to make progress during the race: “Today was different from yesterday in terms of temperatures; that’s why we struggled this morning, but the car performed better this afternoon. The race will be another story, and we’ll need to keep the tyres in the right window.”