There‘s a “better vibe” within the Alfa Romeo Sauber camp after both Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas scored points in the Qatar Grand Prix.
The six points it amassed in Lusail saw the Swiss-based operation, that will become Audi for 2026, jump ahead of Haas in the constructors’ championship.
It was a performance Bottas said was “much needed” after a tough run since the Canadian Grand Prix in which the team has scored just a single point.
“It really felt refreshing for everyone in the team because once you’re doing so many races and without any points for sure, it starts to eat everybody’s confidence a little bit,” the Finn admitted.
“Like, you start to wonder, can you do it? And now, again, we proved for everyone in the team, yes, we can do it.
“If we get everything right, we can score.
“So definitely, yeah, a bit better vibe overall now and I hope that can carry for a bit better end of the season.”
Alfa Romeo Sauber is in a three-way scrap for seventh in the constructors’ championship with Williams, which currently holds the position on 23 points, and Haas, on 12 points.
Williams has shown flashes of pace throughout the campaign, while Haas will introduce a significant update to its car.
While that is not necessarily going to net any lap time improvement, it’s designed to offer development headroom to its designers and therefore the American-registered operation poses a threat.
As for the pecking order this weekend, and whether Alfa Romeo Sauber can pick up another points-paying result, is unclear.
“It is so hard to predict because the gaps are so small,” Bottas noted.
“But at least now we’ve learned a lot more about the upgrades we introduced and we even have some new bits for this race so we’ll find out very soon.”
