After leaving Mercedes F1 at the end of last season, Valtteri Bottas is now committed to a long-term project with Alfa Romeo and the Finn, who has been shining so far, admits to feeling very happy in his new team.
“I feel very good. We started the season scoring points and I like the progress we are making as a team. motivating, and I’m really enjoying this adventure. Hopefully we’ll have a great weekend again.”
In recent years, Alfa Romeo has invested heavily in its simulator in order to be at the cutting edge of technology. Bottas was thus able to discuss the differences with what he knew at Mercedes, and explained the importance of such a tool in current Formula 1.
“These days, of course, simulators are very important with the little testing, and the improvement in technology allows more information to be gained from them. The first time I tried the Alfa Romeo one, I felt big differences with the Mercedes one which has been around for a long time, while ours is only a few years old, so I had some shortcomings but I am now up to date, and I must say that it has been greatly improved and that it is a tool that was, during the last races, very useful for defining the settings for the weekend.”
“In the end, the driver does at the factory what he does on the track insofar as there is this work on the settings and the correlation, and it is really a very good tool. There is still progress to be made and I try of course to bring my contribution thanks to my experience. For example it was very useful to use the simulator for this weekend, because it allowed me to try different settings and fin adjustments before even go to the circuit.”