'Hopefully, That's All Bad Luck For This Season': Bottas After His Second Slowest Pit Stop Ever
F1Monday, 04 March 2024 at 11:00
The first race of the season, the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix, didn't go as planned for Valtteri Bottas, who encountered a few detrimental issues.
The Sauber F1 driver, Valtteri Bottas, finished the race in P19, a lap down on the race leader Max Verstappen, after starting from P16 on the grid.
However, unlike the Dutchman, who didn't encounter a single problem throughout the entire Grand Prix, Bottas's race got complicated on the first lap.
The Finnish driver found himself in an unfortunate spot going into turn one right behind Nico Hulkenberg, who spun Lance Stroll around. The Sauber driver had to break more than expected and damaged the front of his wing. He told the media after the race:
"Unfortunately, today just hasn't been my day. I had a good start, but then I got caught up in the Turn One incident between Nico [Hülkenberg] and Lance [Stroll], which resulted in front wing damage that made me lose some ground and performance."
This incident moved Bottas a couple of positions backward. But it wasn't everything. The 34-year-old encountered another major problem during his pit stop on lap 32.
"On top of that, we had an issue with the wheelnut during my second pit stop, which made us lose some more time."
A great pitstop should take less than 2.5 seconds, and an acceptable pitstop should take less than 3.5 seconds. Can you guess how long did this pitstop take? All in all, it was 52.4 seconds.
"Luck wasn't on our side today, but hopefully, that's all the bad luck for this season. As a positive to take home with us, our pace was definitely better than that of our main competitors – as seen with Zhou, who nearly finished into the points."
Bottas focused on the positives. His teammate finished in P11, which means he might have been close to, if not in the points, had he not been so unlucky. He added:
"This shows we have a better race car than last season, and gives us confidence looking into Jeddah next week."
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