Bottas says tricky Fridays 'a bit of a trend' for Alfa

Valtteri Bottas was sidelined by an engine issue in FP2 in Barcelona, an event that unfortunately upheld Alfa's unproductive tendency of late to endure a disrupted Friday.

Bottas was forced to abandon his C42 after just three laps in Friday's late afternoon session.

"I felt the smell of oil, I saw the smoke on the mirrors and I heard the noise, that didn’t sound good," explained the Finn.

"But we haven’t got the car back, so we don’t know exactly, but I would suspect it was something with the engine."

In Miami, Bottas had crashed during the opening practice session on Friday, so another troubled first day of running in Barcelona was a familiar pattern for the Alfa charger.

"Having tricky Fridays seems like it’s a bit of a trend for us at the moment," he admitted.

"We don’t get much running, but we managed to bounce back every time before and we can aim to do the same this time around."

• Spanish GP: Friday's action in pictures

As expected, Alfa's C42 took to the track in Barcelona with a significant number of upgrades, all of which appear to have improve the Swiss outfit's car according to Bottas.

"Based on that one lap in FP2 I can say that it seems to be working, but in FP1 it was difficult to judge," he said.

"I think we were quite conservative with the set-up, with the way we were trying to avoid porpoising and everything, so we just wanted to gather the data in FP1.

"For us [porpoising] didn’t seem to be an issue, we definitively started quite cautiously in FP1.

In any case, Bottas says that Alfa has come a long way since the last time it ran at the Circuit de Catalunya, back in February during pre-season testing.

"Compared to February, when we had a lot of issues here, we have made a big step forward.

"We took a cautious approach with our upgrades but we pushed more and more towards the optimal set-up. For sure, we will be able to find out even more about the car tomorrow."

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