Valtteri Bottas is in an upbeat mood despite early Alfa Romeo testing issues

Valtteri Bottas has said he is confident that he will be able to record plenty of laps between now and the end of testing despite early issues with his Alfa Romeo car that limited running on Wednesday and caused him to start Thursday’s session late too.

The Finn links up with Alfa for the first time this year after signing a multi-season contract with the team, and he’ll be looking to lead them into Formula 1‘s new era and deliver success alongside rookie team-mate Guanyu Zhou.

Obviously, then, they’re looking to have a productive test period this week just as much as the other nine teams but they have been handed some early technical faults.

Taking to Twitter, though, Bottas is remaining upbeat in the face of some early teething problems and is backing the team to be able to get in plenty of miles between now and the conclusion of the test on Friday:

“Felt so good be back on track and working with Alfa Romeo despite some issues today costing us track time. I’m sure we will get plenty more laps in the coming days!”

Bottas also told the team’s official media:

 “It’s always nice to get back behind the wheel after the winter break, especially with a new car, a new team and a new generation of Formula One cars. I did enjoy my time in the car, even though we had some issues that turned out to be pretty costly in terms of time lost. The important thing, however, is that we were able to understand them completely and we know how to fix them.”

Certainly, with all the new changes to the cars there always seemed the possibility of issues for some and so it proved, with Haas also having problems to contend with.

A lot of the teams managed to clock up the miles, though, and that was impressive on the first day out on track.