In terms of what the priorities will be for Binotto, both in the long-term and short-term, Bottas acknowledged that the team still need to build on their workforce.
“Obviously, some things are internal, but we know that compared to, let’s say, at the moment, to the big teams, we’re still lacking a bit of human power,” the 34-year-old explained. “We could do with more people, but at the same time, the team has been hiring and growing recently quite a bit.
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“There are certain areas that we definitely need to focus on, at the factory but also with the car performance. We’re at the moment not where we need to be, and that basically we needed some new upgrades and into the right direction.”
Bottas’ team mate Zhou Guanyu also gave his take on Binotto’s arrival, with the Chinese driver hopeful that the changes at Kick Sauber can eventually deliver a positive impact on the track.
“It’s, let’s say, different news for everyone especially involved on the trackside and also back in the factory,” said Zhou. “Obviously Mattia has taken a new role that’s going to be looking at all the stuff and making sure we can do a bigger step in terms of bringing the performance back to where I think everyone wants it to be.
“For us right now, of course, we still have one more race to finish on a high before Mattia joins, so hopefully we gather all the information, all the details where we need to improve as a whole group of people and then to continue making, let’s say, a big step behind the scenes that can give us the results we really wanted to have on track.”
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