Valtteri Bottas admitted Alfa Romeo have work to do before the new Formula 1 season, as the team officially launched their new car.
The Finn has moved from world champions Mercedes to Alfa Romeo, where he will be partnered by rookie Guanyu Zhou, the first Chinese driver to make it to F1.
“The nice feeling is that I definitely feel there is potential,” Bottas said.
“There are some strong areas in certain types of corner but I also noticed some areas to work on.”
Alfa Romeo had a difficult first test in Barcelona this week, where the car ran in a camouflage livery before the launch.
They were particularly badly afflicted by an aerodynamic “bouncing” problem that affected all the teams to one degree or another, and then had reliability problems in the second part of the test once that was brought under control.
As a result, Alfa Romeo did the second-lowest mileage out of the 10 teams at the test, completing less than half the testing distance of pace-setters Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and Red Bull.
“It’s nothing we shouldn’t be able to fix,” said Bottas, who won 10 grands prix over his five years at Mercedes as team-mate to Lewis Hamilton. “It feels like we are in the very early stages of discovering the car.
“We had very limited running, only two different tyre compounds and limited set-up changes.
“There is work to do but I also feel like there is potential in this package and I am looking forward to discovering more with the team.”
The new Alfa Romeo is the final car to be unveiled after the introduction of F1’s revolutionary new technical regulations this year.
It features a number of design solutions already seen on other cars, from a “scoop” front wing similar to the McLaren, to the undercut side-pods with extensive top-surface cooling vents similar to the Aston Martin.
It is in a variation of the red-and-white colours that have become familiar since Alfa Romeo took on title sponsorship of the Swiss-based Sauber team in 2019.
Team principal Frederic Vasseur said Alfa Romeo had “quite a difficult session” but added that he expected the key problems to have been addressed for the second and final pre-season test in Bahrain on 10-12 March.
Zhou, who brings a large package of Chinese sponsorship income to the team, said he was “excited” to make his debut, and that his progress to F1 proved that “dreams can come true”.
“I have so much stuff I have to learn with the switches and all the stuff in the car,” he said. “It has been a great experience so far. A long way to go, a lot of knowledge to learn, but so far so good.”
The 2022 season starts in Bahrain on 18-20 March.
