2022 F1 Season Review Part 5: P6 - Alfa Romeo F1 Racing

2022-2023 Winter Break P6 - Alfa Romeo

Drivers

Valtteri Bottas – 10^th with 49 points

Zhou Guanyu – 18^th with 6 points

Alfa Romeo finished 6^th with 55 points

  

Per F1C Rules

Valtteri Bottas – 12^th with 311

Zhou Guanyu – 20^th with 185

Alfa Romeo – 7^th with 496

 

Summary

Alfa Romeo had a pretty strong start to the season, scoring points nine times in the first nine races, and then seemed to fall apart for most of the rest of the season.  In the remaining thirteen races, however, they only scored points three more times.  Ultimately, I think they had a pretty decent season overall (as compared to their expectations).  The biggest issue they had was getting all their results in the first half of the season and letting expectations increase.

They finished 6^th in the Constructor’s Championship which was as good as they were going to do.  I say they were winners in 2022!

Qualifying Part 1

Bottas made it to Q3 in five of the first six races.  In the remaining 16 races, he only made Q3 an additional three times, making it there in eight races.

Zhou didn’t make it to Q3 until the ninth race of the season in Montreal.  He only made it to Q3 on one other occasion which happened to be in the following race at Silverstone.

Both drivers were kicked out of Q1 in five races.

 

Qualifying Part 2

Bottas qualified at an average position of 11.4 with a highest qualifying of fifth in Miami, two sixth places in Bahrain and Mexico City, one-seventh at Catalunya, three eighth places at Saudi Arabia, Imola, and Hungary, and one-tenth at Circuit of the Americas.  He qualified in the bottom five on five occasions

Zhou qualified at an average position of 14.4 with a best ninth at Silverstone and a tenth in Canada.  He also qualified in the bottom five on five occasions.

Overall, Bottas out qualified his teammate 14-8 including seven straight in the first seven races.  Bottas was by far the stronger qualifier.

 

Sprint Race Results

Bottas scored valuable points for Alfa Romeo at the first sprint race of the year in Imola, finishing second as Zhou DNF’d.  In Austria, Bottas finished 10^th vs. Zhou finishing 14^th.  Neither position was a points scoring one…. In Brazil, Zhou finished 13^th, one position ahead of Valtteri in 14^th.  Again no points were scored for the team.

Valtteri scored the only team points at one race making him clearly the stronger driver in sprint events in 2022.
 

 

Qualifying vs. Starting Position

Bottas improved a total of 7 positions from where he qualified to where he started each race, an average of +0.3 positions per race, improving 7 positions in Belgium by not taking any penalties when pretty much everyone else did, at least in the top few teams.

Zhou improved 3 positions all season improving +5.0 positions in Austria and Monza.

There is no winner here as this is a stupid ass metric that really doesn’t mean anything.

 

Starting vs. Finishing Position

Bottas improved +17.0 positions over the course of the 22-race season, improving +9.0 positions in Austria, +5.0 in Brazil, and +4.0 in Australia, Baku, Canada, and Singapore.  He lost (12.0) positions in Hungary.
 
Zhou improved +1.1 positions per race for a total of 26.0 positions during the season.  He improved +5.0 or more positions in Bahrain, Imola, and COTA. 
 
Both drivers were pretty consistent throughout the year in finishing better than where they started.  Although in all fairness, they were rarely at the front…

 

Race Results

Bottas started the 2022 season strong AF (for Alfa Romeo).  He scored points in seven of the first nine races and then had a ten-race drought of points.  Ultimately, he scored points in nine races (Bahrain, Australia, Imola, Miami, Spain, Monaco, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil).  He finished a season-high 5^th at Imola, 6^th in Bahrain and Spain, 7^th in Miami and Canada, 8^th in Australia, 9^th in Monaco and Brazil, and tenth in Mexico City.  Both drivers finished the year with five DNFs. 

Zhou scored points (or point, more specifically) on his F1 debut in Bahrain (i.e. 10^th).  He then had a seven-race gap without points until finishing a season-high 8^th in Canada.  Then he went six races without any points before scoring another 10^th at Monza.

Bottas scored points in 9 races.  Zhou scored in 3.

Team Winner

Is there even a question?  Out of Lewis Hamilton’s shadow, Bottas shined like the star that he is scoring 90% of Alfa Romeo’s points in 2022.  The knowledge he gained during his time as Lewis Hamilton’s teammate was invaluable to him and Alfa Romeo and he will be even stronger in 2023.

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