Bottas and Schumacher: MGU-K curse | FormulaPassion.it

There was no shortage of disappointments for some teams in the first two free practice sessions of the Monaco Grand Prix; between accidents and technical problems, two teams powered by Ferrari they had to raise the white flag with one of the two drivers for the same, identical reason: failure of the MGU-K. Over the PL1this problem occurred atAlfa Romeo by Valtteri Bottas, with the Finn who closed the test prematurely after only two laps. A few hours later, however, the same problem occurred on the Haas by Mick Schumacheralso unable to record a timed time during the PL2.

An unscheduled event that therefore did not allow Bottas to start the Monegasque weekend on the right foot, on a Friday that ended with a 14th place at the end of the second session: “It wasn’t an ideal Friday, but we recovered well in FP2 – explained the former Mercedes – we lost the first session due to a power unit failure it required two hours to be resolved, and it’s a shame because this is really a track where you need every possible lap to feel comfortable: you don’t even have the chance to do many clean laps, with all the traffic, to prepare for qualifying, so it will be essential to do a good PL3. PL2 was actually my first session of the weekend, so I took it one step at a time. I know there is still a lot to improve, both in terms of myself and in terms of the set-up, and I think we have still the potential to make it into the Top-10. The car felt good and I know we can be in the fray for Q3 ″.

Unlucky afternoon also for the German from Haas, who had finished the first session in penultimate place. The latter signal of the technical KO which occurred in the second part of Friday: “We had some problems, especially this morning, so unfortunately I couldn’t run for most of the PL1s, and we are still catching up – Schumacher admitted – however, we managed to lap well during FP2, and now it’s a question of what we need to go faster. Compared to last year it is decidedly different: the track is more bumpy, the roughness is not filtered out, and the effects are felt not only on the car, but also on the driving. The approach will be different and the general feeling is a bit different than in 2021 ″.

For the rest, Bottas still set a better time at Alfa Romeo than his teammate Zhouwho described his first outing in Monaco in an F1 “Tough but fun”. An opinion very similar to that of Magnussenwith the Haas driver also pointing out the irregularities of “A very narrow circuit which makes driving very intense”.