Alfa Romeo makes steps: 'Maybe not quite as fast as we were hoping for'

Two and a half years sounds a long time, but in Formula 1, it means little. Teams think months, even years ahead when developing their cars. For example, Sauber's team (currently driving under the Alfa Romeo name) is preparing to be taken over by Audi, which will make Sauber its own factory team.

Several 'big names' have already been recruited for the organisation, such as CEO Andrea Seidl and recently James Key as technical director. Sauber is thus making progression in the background, as Valtteri Bottas also noticed. The Finn currently drives for the Alfa Romeo team. "Definitely seen a bit of evolution," he told GPblog and others in Barcelona.

'Progression was not enough'

"I think just the attention to smaller details has improved quite a lot. Even when I look at the car, everything is just a bit better finished and more detailed. And same operationally in the team, I think we are making steps forward. But with performance, the steps we made over the winter was not enough. So that's what we are obviously focusing on now," confessed the former Mercedes driver.

Alfa Romeo captured 'only' eight points this season and the sub-top seems far away. Surely, anyone looking purely at the results would really suspect little development. Bottas is an insider, he knows things are different. "But I'm seeing progress in the team," he reiterated. "I think everyone in the team also senses the excitement of the future plan of the team. Things are going in the right direction. Maybe not quite as fast as we were hoping for in the last year or so, but it's going in the right direction."