Valtteri Bottas believes his Alfa Romeo team needs to burn some midnight oil to bring updates to its car sooner rather than later to boost its disappointing performance.
Bottas qualified 15th at Silverstone last weekend, two spots ahead of teammate Zhou Guanyu, but the Finn was excluded from the session by the stewards as they were unable to extract from the car the mandatory one-litre test sample of fuel.
On Sunday, Bottas drove a steady race to cross the checkered flag 14th, but later gaining two positions thanks to a five-second time penalty handed to Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll.
But at the end of the day, it was another pointless effort for the ten-time Grand Prix winner and Alfa Romeo which has only scored four top-ten finishes this season and which currently sits next to last in F1’s Constructors’ standings.
Like its rivals, the Swiss outfit has updated its C43 challenger recently, adding a revised floor diffuser and rear suspension at the British Grand Prix. But the impact of those changes hasn’t delivered a relative advantage to Alfa.
"We made a step but also other teams have made steps, that's the name of the game. So we need to find a bit more,” commented Bottas.
"We don't have anything coming in the next two events until after the summer break. The guys and girls really need to work hard in the factory to bring some new bits."
©AlfaRomeo
The F1 season is nearing its mid-way point when teams typically start to shift most of their resources to next year’s design. Bottas says Alfa will soon need to make a call on when the crossover will be made.
"We're approaching halfway through the season and we've not been able to really move up the order," said the 33-year-old.
"At some point, we need to decide when to focus for next year and I'm sure those discussions are gonna be made soon.
"We were expecting it [the car] to be better than last year, but just didn't find enough during the winter and the beginning of the season so far.
"We're not meeting targets we set ourselves, now we just need to work hard."
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