Alfa Romeo identifies ‘fuel system’ error in the Hungarian GP which caused an early retirement for Valtteri Bottas
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Valtteri Bottas
Xevi Pujolar, Alfa Romeo’s head of trackside engineering, revealed the team had no notification before Valtteri Bottas’ car failed in Hungary. Bottas was running at 12th at the Hungaroring when his C42 clambered to a halt, resulting in a virtual safety car period on lap 65 of 70.
On being asked what really caused the Finn’s early retirement, Pujolar confirmed that it was a technical issue that they encountered with which wasn’t exactly the most ideal situation for the Hinwil-based racing team.
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Hard tyres is not an issue for Alfa Romeo
Alfa Romeo has already had a multitude of reliability problems this year, with Bottas’ retirement becoming the team’s eighth of the season. When asked if the issue was a recurrence of a preceding worry or something novel, Pujolar mentioned: “From what it looks like at the moment, it was a new issue and we need to understand why it happened.”
The majority of drivers who used the hard tyre compound in Hungary had to contend with temperature levels that were significantly lower than during the first half of the weekend, which made it challenging to produce heat into the rubber. However, according to Pujolar, Alfa Romeo didn’t face any such issues, with its fourth consecutive failure to score some points due to a poor start.
“For us, the hard was actually okay, we didn’t have any big problems. We were having more of a problem later on with the blue flags and also then because people with fresher tyres were catching up but that was not the problem of the hard tyre. The problem was because we lost too many positions in lap one and then we got stuck in traffic. That meant we could not be further up the road as we had planned,” concluded Pujolar.
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Rishika Saha
(445 Articles Published)