Valtteri Bottas used the primary FIA press convention of the 2026 season to poke enjoyable on the Aston Martin workforce, joking that drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll had been his picks for a championship win.
It has been over a yr since we have been handled to Bottas’s dry humour in a press convention after he carried out reserve driver duties for Mercedes in 2025. However with the driving force’s huge expertise now being employed by Cadillac, Method 1’s eleventh workforce of the 2026 season, we welcome the fan-favourite again to the grid.
With just a few days of testing beneath his belt, the Finn was requested to call his high decide for a championship win this season, and his reply did not disappoint.
“If I’ve to guess one thing now, I’ll say Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso,” Bottas joked. “And… George Russell,” he added. “As a result of I feel they had been saying that they might beat us on the very finish in Abu Dhabi.”
Aston Martin arrives in Melbourne because the weakest workforce on the grid, with the Silverstone outfit confirming that will probably be proscribing the variety of laps their drivers will full this weekend as a result of intense vibrations brought on by the Honda energy unit.
“What we have now achieved for this weekend [is a solution] that examined on the dyno over the course of the weekend that has efficiently, considerably decreased the vibration going into the battery,” workforce principal Adrian Newey mentioned. “However what’s necessary to recollect is the ability unit is the supply of the vibration, it is the amplifier.
“The chassis is, in that situation, the receiver. A carbon chassis is a naturally stiff construction with little or no damping, so the transmission of that vibration into the chassis, we have not made any progress on.”
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing
Photograph by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Photographs by way of Getty Photographs
The famed automobile designer added that the vibrations aren’t solely affecting the drivers, however they’re additionally shaking the vehicles aside – a reason for a few of the reliability points seen throughout Bahrain’s testing. However their driver well being is, unsurprisingly, most necessary.
“We’re going to must be very closely restricted on what number of laps we do within the race till we get on high of the supply of the vibration and enhance the vibration at supply,” Newey mentioned, referring to the ability unit.
Whereas Mercedes and Russell – Bottas’s reasonable decide for the championship – look very promising heading into the season, Aston Martin’s points are staggering.
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