Valtteri Bottas feels 'tricky Fridays' have become 'a bit of a trend' for Alfa Romeo

Valtteri Bottas says “tricky Friday” sessions have become the norm at Alfa Romeo this season after an apparent power unit issue forced the Finn out of FP2 for the 2022 F1 Spanish GP. After a decent first practice session in the morning, Bottas’ progress was cut short by the problem.

Speaking to planetf1, he said:

“It seems a bit of a trend that we have tricky Fridays, and we don’t get much running which is unfortunate but I’m sure we can bounce back. The positive thing is that one lap that I had on the mediums the car felt pretty good. We can work on that.”

Alfa Romeo is reportedly still investigating the cause of the issue. Given that it was a practice engine, there is no risk of the issue affecting the Finn throughout the rest of the weekend. Explaining the issue, Bottas said:

“I smelt and saw the smoke and before that I heard a noise which didn’t sound good. We still haven’t got the car back, so we don’t know exactly but I’d expect something with the engine.”

Reliability problems seem to be hindering Alfa Romeo’s progress this season. Despite their 2022 challenger often exhibiting impressive pace that puts the team at the sharp end of the midfield, they have so far failed to convert that pace into consistent results with both cars.

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Valtteri Bottas says Alfa Romeo moving “closer to optimal” in terms of performance

Valtteri Bottas says his team is making good progress on ironing out some of their early-season issues, including porpoising, after bringing in a slew of upgrades. He felt that they were closer to optimal in terms of extracting the maximum pace from their car. He said:

“[Porpoising] didn’t seem like an issue. We definitely started quite cautiously in practice one with the upgrades and we’re getting more and more towards the optimal.”

Alfa Romeo currently sits at P5 in the constructors’ standings with 31 points. While this is a great turnaround for the team after a difficult few seasons, they believe they have the potential to do better, especially with Bottas.