Are Bottas and Zhou too sweet?: When there is a lack of tension in the team

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Franz Tost (67) leaves Formula 1 after 18 years and 17 drivers. The Tyrolean team boss of Toro Rosso and now Alpha Tauri-Honda leaves behind a great legacy. His drivers bow to him: “He was always strict, direct, but correct. “I owe him a lot,” said Max Verstappen, praising him.

The tireless man who hates vacations and days off once said to me: “I have nothing against pilots who cause accidents. But they have to be quick!”

And perhaps his most important sentence for Formula 1: “You should always feel a lot of tension between your two drivers. Otherwise you are lost as a team.”

Up to 0.3 seconds slower

And it is clear to the experts that a kind of brotherly love causes both pilots to slow down by up to 0.3 seconds per lap. So it’s toxic when two drivers get along too well.

With Hamilton and Rosberg, the collaboration even fell into the hate category (which even team boss Wolff later admitted).

Harmonious atmosphere at Alfa-Sauber

Since 2021, Alfa-Sauber has been the textbook example of a driver relationship that is too harmonious. Since his GP start, Chinese Guanyu Zhou has almost been hanging on the tail of his Finnish role model Valtteri Bottas.

While the drivers from other teams avoid each other during dinner, the Hinwil couple is always seen together. Almost scary.

Where can you sense a (not always healthy) rivalry? Like between Leclerc and Sainz, Hamilton and Russell, Norris and Piastri or Hülkenberg and Magnussen? Verstappen is so dominant that he simply ignores Pérez at Red Bull. Ocon and Gasly (Alpine) have not been able to stand each other since their youth. And Alonso exerts his dominance at Aston Martin in such a way that owner son Stroll cannot complain.

Source : Blick