Zhou savors a 9th place, Bottas seeks to “understand” his lack of pace

Eliminated in the first part of qualifying, Guanyu Zhou & Valterri Bottas knew that reaching the points the next day would be very difficult. However, the circumstances of a race that could be described as “surreal” allowed the former to cross the finish line in P10, while benefiting a few moments later from the penalty of Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, to ultimately be classified ninth.

« I am satisfied with the progress we have made,” Zhou said, “because we started from the back of the grid today.”

The car was much sportier than yesterday, and I felt like I could compete with the guys around me. So I’m happy.

Adding that the team hasn’t been the most consistent in the midfield until now.

However, there is a lot of work in progress, so I am confident that we can overcome this, and work during this rather long April break, and I hope to come back stronger and continue to fight with the others.

Bottas « not at all in the rhythm »

The winner of the 2019 edition, never managed to find his rhythm on board his Alfa Romeo C43. Dominated by his teammate in qualifying, and then starting from the pit lane on soft tires, he never managed to climb back up the rankings, spending an afternoon in solitude at Albert Park.

“There wasn’t much action until the end,” Bottas said. “It’s a shame that we took a risk with the strategy. I pitted at the end of the first lap to switch to the hard tyres, intending to do the entire race on them.”

But after the red flag, everyone had the same strategy and I couldn’t take advantage of it. Then, I filled up with soft tires before the end, just before the red flag, and then everyone was back on soft tires. I didn’t have much luck with the red flags today.

« It was [a challenging weekend]. I was completely out of sync with where we thought we would be. So there’s something to look into. I’m glad there’s still some time before the next race so we can find a solution. »