Fresh from three races finished without having won even a point, theAlfa Romeo in qualifying for the Hungarian GP she finally returned to breathe the air of the upper half of the standings. The defections of the two Red Bulls in fact – with Sergio Perez eliminated in Q2 and Max Verstappen blocked by power problems during Q3 – are complicit. Valtteri Bottas he managed to drag his Alfa up to eighth on the grid. This is, for the two-time Finnish vice world champion, the best qualifying result since the Miami GP. A decent session was also that of his teammate, the Chinese Zhou Guanyuwho got 12th place – his third best result of his career – coming very close to passing the cut.
“It’s good to be back in Q3 – commented Valtteri Bottas at the end of qualifying – finally we managed to put everything together and the results prove it. It’s been a while since we’ve been here and it’s good to be in our place. We were closer to Alpine than we thought, which is good, and it looks like we have made some progress since the last race. In terms of pace, I think there isn’t a big difference between the midfield teams and this should give rise to a good battle tomorrow. However, this is a difficult track to overtake on, so it’s good to start from the top 10 and be able to fight for points right from the start. Tomorrow it will be a question of making a good start and choosing the right strategy“.
Also satisfied with the work done Zhou, who curiously will find himself leaving behind the two Red Bulls by Verstappen and Perez. “I’m quite happy with how qualifying went today – said the young Chinese – especially taking into account the difficult conditions we faced this morning. We finally managed to get back into Q2 with both cars. Once again the situation was very close in midfield. I was impressed with our pace today, as it felt like we were back to our levels after a couple of tough weekends. Q3 wasn’t too far out of my reach, but I ran into some traffic on the exit lap and the tires weren’t ready. However, I put together a good lap and I’m happy. It seems that tomorrow will not be much hotter than today, so we hope that this will put us in a good position for the race, to try and take home some points “.
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