Valtteri Bottas has contended that Ferrari’s Formula 1 package is “not rocket science” amid Lewis Hamilton’s struggles since arriving at the team from Mercedes.
The seven-time World Champion has found adaptation to driving for the Italian marque tricky, having spent 12 seasons with the German marque.
With no race win – China Sprint excepted – or podium under his belt yet, Hamilton lies sixth in the Drivers’ Championship, publicly criticising the SF-25’s characteristics on the way.
Bottas, his former Mercedes team-mate, has experience with both types of engine, having switched to a Ferrari-backed challenger in the shape of Alfa Romeo in 2022.
The Finn admitted that Hamilton’s team-mate Charles Leclerc will be more adept with the car they are both driving, but acknowledged that the Briton will need to adjust.
“For sure, there’s things to learn, things to get used to,” he told the Red Flags podcast.
“And especially if you are with a team-mate that has got used to all that, he will have the upper hand initially, but racing drivers always need to be adaptive.
“You need to be able to adapt to a new car. Pretty much every year there’s a new car anyway – power units will change and so on.
“So it’s nothing unusual in F1 that you’re always adapting, always learning because this sport just keeps developing.
“But I know what he’s probably been going through and for me, personally, it was quite straightforward.
“But we must remember that at that time when I joined Alfa Romeo, there was the big regulation change so there were many new things anyway already.”
Mercedes and Ferrari: Bottas compares the differences
Bottas further explained the differences between how a Mercedes and Ferrari package feels and operates, starting with the powertrain.
“The driveability is a bit different. How the power comes, especially at the lower revs. But which one is better? It’s difficult to say,” he pondered.
“The settings, the power harvesting, power deployment, you’ve got different strategies. They call them differently, so you need to learn how to use that.
“Even the harvesting, the braking can be a bit different because of that. [The sound] can be different, but that doesn’t really make a big difference. That’s it really. It’s not rocket science.”
Another key difference is the brakes, with Mercedes being longstanding users of Carbon Industries, whereas the Ferrari works and customer teams use Brembo.
“For me, it didn’t make a difference,” Bottas assessed.
“Obviously, Mercedes uses CI. Sauber used Brembo, which is what Ferrari used.
“The only small difference for me was how the brakes warm up. Another brand warms up quicker, but for me the behaviour was same same.”
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