A 52.4s pit cease was the nadir of a irritating opening Grand Prix of the season for Kick Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas, with the Finn coming dwelling a distant nineteenth on the Bahrain Worldwide Circuit.
Bottas’s race had already acquired off to a compromised begin when, from P16 on the grid, he acquired caught up in touch between Lance Stroll and Nico Hulkenberg, Bottas nerfing the rear of Hulkenberg’s Haas and damaging his entrance wing.
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However there have been shades of Monaco 2021 – when Bottas was pressured to retire from the race after a wheel acquired caught on his Mercedes within the pits – when he got here into the Kick Sauber field to swap his delicate tyres for hards.
There, a cross-threaded wheel nut noticed him stationary for 52.4s because the mechanics tried to resolve the difficulty – ruining Bottas’s race, as he got here dwelling properly down the sector in P19.
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“Clearly there was a difficulty with the wheel nut,” stated Bottas post-race. “One thing to research to verify it doesn’t occur once more, I feel that’s the principle take from me in the present day. And in addition, unfortunate with the Flip 1 incident – I had a bit of harm within the entrance wing.
“It wasn’t really an enormous impact, simply slight understeer perhaps in sure corners, however nothing enormous.”
“So, not my day, however hopefully that’s my unhealthy luck for the 12 months executed!”
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The optimistic for Kick Sauber was a robust race day efficiency from Bottas’s crew mate Zhou Guanyu, who rose from seventeenth on the grid to complete the race in P11, behind the Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll – with the Chinese language driver cautiously happy with the efficiency of his all-new Kick Sauber C44.
“Truthfully, I’m pleased with the progress the crew have been capable of make,” he stated. “In the beginning of this weekend, in the event you informed me we have been preventing with the Astons, I feel we’re in a great spot.
“However clearly the tempo is form of the place we’re; we actually maximised every part within the race, I didn’t do any errors. However simply to keep up Lance behind was so troublesome… I’d simply destroy my tyres. So P11, nonetheless so much to be engaged on, as a result of all of us nonetheless need one other step extra nearer to the factors.
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“Over the entire course of the weekend, coming again to the testing, we have been altering so much on the set-up,” he added. “We actually couldn’t discover the consolation zone with this new automotive we now have. This weekend which I did, we made small adjustments which appear to be stepping into the suitable route, so let’s hold centered, hold working as a crew for Jeddah and present we are able to do a step.”
