Bottas endured a frustrating weekend in Baku after his pace completely vanished from Saturday onwards. In the race, he was a sitting duck, finishing a lapped 11th while teammate Zhou Guanyu was on course for points until he retired with a technical issue.
On Friday, Bottas finished one tenth ahead of Zhou in each practice session. After swapping to Alfa's new specification on Saturday morning, the Finn was suddenly seven tenths slower than the Chinese rookie in FP3 and Q1, and six tenths behind in Q2 as the pair qualified 14th and 15h.
