Bottas: We've Learned a Lot Already

Valtteri Bottas is positive after Friday practice despite suffering suspension and fuel system problems on the first day of the F1 season.

The Finn finished second in FP1, half a second away from team-mate Lewis Hamilton, and third in FP2, behind Hamilton again and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

He suffered issues during FP1 but insists that they will not affect his weekend.

He said: “FP1 was tricky for me, we had a bit of an issue with the suspension and also with the fuel system, so it was difficult to get a good comparison.

“I don’t think these issues are something to worry about, just something we discovered in the session.

“In second practice the car felt a lot better but there’s still more to unlock.

“We got some information for the long runs if it’s a dry race, we got some tyre data and we can see that a lot of things are behaving differently to testing in Barcelona because it’s much warmer and it’s a different tarmac.

“We’ve definitely learned a lot and we’ll keep on learning.”

Bottas is hoping to add to his tally of three race wins and to challenge for his first world title in 2018 as he tries to retain his seat for 2019.

“It’s looking really close between us, Ferrari and Red Bull but that was more or less expected” he said, “Let’s see what tomorrow brings.”