周冠宇

Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN ran all its three drivers on a busy Friday of practice in Budapest. Reserve driver, Robert Kubica, was in the car for FP1 before Valtteri Bottas resumed his duties alongside Zhou Guanyu for FP2. The team ended the day in the top ten and collected plenty of data for the engineers to crunch tonight.

Valtteri Bottas (car number 77):
Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN C42 (Chassis 01/Ferrari)
FP1: Did not take part
FP2: 10th / 1:19.411 (30 laps)

"I had FP2 to get a bit of a feel for the car and the updates we are bringing for this race. I think we've made a step forward in terms of grip, we are moving in the right direction: the midfield is going to be as close as always, so every little improvement can give you an edge. I know there's a lot more to come from my side, so I am satisfied with what we did today, it wasn't a bad start. Tomorrow may be a very different day when it comes to the weather, but we did work to prepare for all conditions. Overall, the balance of the car is not bad so I think we're in a good place for Sunday."

Zhou Guanyu (car number 24):
Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN C42 (Chassis 02/Ferrari)
FP1: 15th / 1:20.810 (23 laps)
FP2: 12th / 1:19.605 (26 laps)

"Today went reasonably smooth, we took a step forward in the afternoon compared to FP1, although there is still plenty of stuff to look through overnight preparing for Saturday. Hopefully, we will be able to have a better performance tomorrow compared to the previous weekends, but I think it's safe to say we aren't looking too bad. In today's hot conditions, we didn't struggle much compared to Paul Ricard, so I think what needs to be done is some fine tuning to be all set for tomorrow. As usual, the midfield is set to be tight, so we need to put out our best performances and be able to get back to Q2 which should be our base goal from now on."

Robert Kubica (car number 88):
Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN C42 (Chassis 01/Ferrari)
FP1: 19th / 1:21.179 (20 laps)
FP2: Did not take part

"It is always good and interesting to be in the car, as there is always something to learn. For the second time in a row after France, track conditions were different, we ran a few tests and we discovered some new things. All in all, I think we did a good job. We had some updates on the car, so I made sure I took it easy to avoid any damage, but I still had a little bit of fun. I did one run on the hard compound and then switched them for softs, it's never the most straightforward to switch from one compound to the other but all went well."