Autosportfoto

Bottas plays down ‘anything dramatic’ in F1 development race

Valtteri Bottas has shot down speculation of any dramatic changes in the F1 pecking order ahead of the expected development gains upon the return to Europe after the opening four flyaway rounds.

The Russia Grand Prix winner is confident all teams will make lap time gains and assumes the factory squads with larger resources will be able to uncover the biggest improvements ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix.

With pre-season testing held at Circuit de Catalunya and the addition of four race weekends of information and data to work from, teams are predicted to bring significant car updates to Barcelona track.

Bottas doesn't believe any of the teams will find such significant improvements compared to their rivals that there will be movement in the F1 pecking order.

"I think it's just going to get quicker, every car is going to get a lot better through the season and always when there's a big rule change and the progress is bigger, the steps are bigger, the more lap time gained during the year," Bottas said. "I think it's going to be the same for each team and I think the top teams with more resources can obviously improve more.

"Hopefully we can improve more but I don't think there will be anything dramatic; just the cars are going to be quicker, more downforce really and better tyre understanding with the tracks and all of the compounds."

While the majority of teams are expected to bring a number of small updates to their 2017 cars, Red Bull is speculated to be trialing effectively a brand new aerodynamic set-up in order to close the performance deficit to Ferrari and Mercedes at the sharp-end of the F1 grid.

Zdroj: crash.net