Bottas's role in revitalising Alfa Romeo: 'He's a leader on and off the track'

He worked his way past Magnussen but then at the stop for dry tyres 10 seconds were lost, although fortunately no positions. He spent the rest of the race chasing down Russell, jogging memories of their spectacular clash at the same venue the previous year. He got onto the tail of the Mercedes, but couldn’t find a way past.

Nevertheless fifth was another great result for Bottas and his team.

“Good to get 10 points from this race,” he said. “The car was really good today. Obviously it’s unfortunate that we lost bit of time during the pitstop, but these things happen, and we need to learn from it. But apart from that, a really strong race.

“When we went to the slicks, I really could push like qualifying every lap. So that made it pretty fun. And especially the middle to the end of that stint we had really good performance, good pace. Only the last few laps once I got close to George my rear right started to grain a bit, once I was demanding a bit more traction and so on. So just couldn’t quite get him, but maybe next time.”

The 2021 clash with George Russell at the same circuit didn’t play on his mind, although Bottas admitted the thought of beating the man who had replaced him at Mercedes was a driving force in the closing laps. “I tried not to think about [the previous year’s crash], obviously. But Mercedes and George, that was my motivation throughout the race, to push every lap and hopefully get a chance towards the end. But I didn’t quite get it. And I lost like 10 seconds in the pit stop, so without that for sure. It could have been a bit different.

“If you look at the time we would have been close to P3, but would it have been possible to overtake? That’s the question mark.”

Four races into the season Bottas lies eighth in the World Championship, just four points behind Hamilton. Without the Jeddah retirement he would be ahead.

The Mercedes struggle is a scenario that no one could have envisaged, but there are sound reasons why Alfa has made a step.

Like others towards the back of the grid the team did virtually no development on its 2021 car, and made an early switch to the 2022 model. Throw in an improved Ferrari power unit, which has clearly also helped Haas, and there’s some logic behind the step the team has made.

Crucially the team now has someone who can benchmark the car. With the Räikkönen/Giovinazzi combination the engineers could never be quite sure – the former was obviously at the end of his career and still quick on his day, while the latter could do a good lap, but was inconsistent. With Bottas the team knows where it is.

“I’m a big fan of statistics,” says Vasseur. “Over the last two or three years he was 0.2sec off Lewis, and if you consider they didn’t always have exactly the same spec, it’s a very strong performance.

“And for sure for the team it’s, not an insurance, but when you start the session, you know that the guy who sits in the car has this kind of level of performance, no doubt.

“And if you look on the performance from Valtteri, he is very consistent, he is always able to do the job, he puts some very strong laps into quali. It’s not just pure performance, but the approach of the team is a bit different.”

In other words if Bottas has a viewpoint on what set-up direction is required, the engineers trust him completely. He is clearly in a good place right now. Driving for Mercedes and having a winning car at his disposal every weekend, was obviously an incredible experience. But being in Hamilton’s shadow, and forever being asked if he was worried about losing his job, was draining. Now he knows that his knowledge and input is essential, and is having a direct impact. Meanwhile those comparisons with his former team are inevitable.

“It is surprising,” he says of the Mercedes slump. “Never expected it to be that that tricky, but they’re still scoring points. Hopefully we can score more than them.

“I’m very happy to be in a place where I’m at the moment, and I’m really enjoying it and obviously, we had better race pace today in the end [at Imola]. I don’t know the reasons why they’re struggling, I don’t know the technical details.

“I focus on our things and focus on improving our car, which we did this weekend, and hopefully we can do it in the next race as well.”