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Formula 1 Mexican GP
Bottas worried about unique downforce in Mexico
Valtteri Bottas has admitted that his biggest worry ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix is that the unique downforce levels could hurt Williams more than its rivals.
Jonathan Noble
Published: Oct 30, 2015, 6:14 AM
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The less dense air at the high altitude of the Hermanos Rodriguez track, with its being 2200 metres above sea levels, means that teams will be running maximum wing levels – even though they will deliver less downforce than Monza.
With Williams known to have struggled on some low-speed tracks this year, Bottas says that the advantage his outfit will have on the engine front may be negated if its high-downforce package does not deliver.
“It is difficult to say how competitive we are going to be,” he said. “We will find out a little bit on Friday.
“The only thing that worries me is it is low downforce here, much, much lower than Monza. We are running the maximum downforce [levels] and whether our maximum downforce is enough compared to some other teams we will find out.
“There are a lot of things for the engineers to work out with the cooling and everything, so it should be interesting.”
Unpredictable weekends
Bottas' team-mate Felipe Massa reckons everyone is facing a weekend of more uncertainty this weekend than they do at other venues.
“The downforce is even lower than Monza, and Monza we use very small wings,” he said. “We expect very, very quick speed on the straight here and not maybe different to Monza, but also a very low downforce feeling.
“It is much more difficult for the cooling, brakes, bodywork, I think it is a little bit new for everybody especially the engineers.
“It could be that something happens, and the result what we expect is a little bit different. So we need to work really hard to understand everything in the best way we can.”
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