Perez Collision Deemed Main Cause For Bottas's Dreadful Race In Las Vegas
F1Wednesday, 22 November 2023 at 10:00
Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas reflected on his part in the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix at the Las Vegas Grand Prix Circuit.
Alfa Romeo F1 driver Valtteri Bottas started the race in Las Vegas in seventh place on the grid after a very successful qualifying session, setting himself up for an even better race.
Following the disappointing race result in Sao Paulo, where both Alfa Romeo drivers had to retire their cars, Bottas described one positive aspect - that Alfa Romeo cars adapted well to cooler temperatures.
In Las Vegas, it was a lot cooler than in Brazil, and Bottas might have hoped it would become his advantage. However, he did not get to show his pace at all, as he got his car damaged on the first lap of the race.
The Finn had a great start off the line, but he had to break more into the first corner in order to avoid Fernando Alonso, he flew in the corner, sliding out of control and almost collecting multiple cars with him.
Sergio Perez, behind Bottas, did not expect the Alfa Romeo driver to break so hard and went into the back of his car and he actually ended up pushing Bottas into Alonso's Aston Martin. As quoted by Fomrula1, Bottas told the media after the race.
"Obviously, it was disappointing but I kind of hoped that I could still recover from there. But the biggest issue was the damage I had actually from the hit from behind [from Perez]."
The 34-year-old could not maintain his pace for the rest of the race and was the last driver to cross the finish line in seventeenth place. He explained it was a very long race for him:
"So, my diffuser was quite in a few pieces which then compromised me so I couldn’t really make any progress, so was always falling backwards. So, it felt like a long race, longer than 50 laps!"
We often see F1 drivers damage their cars in the race and then continue on as if it did not affect their pace at all, with examples of Max Verstappen in Las Vegas or Charles Leclerc in Mexico City.
However, Bottas was not as lucky as he described the damage he received from the collision with Perez cost him "at least a second a lap."
"Like seeing the gaps, lap times, at least a second a lap, so it was pretty significant."
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