Frederic Vasseur says he is encouraging Alfa Romeo to focus on the big picture this season, rather than targeting specific finishing positions race-to-race.

The Sauber-run team has been one of the more consistent through 2022 so far, finishing in the top eight of three of the four races and having Valtteri Bottas retire from a similar position in the other. After a weekend in Imola where Vassuer felt Bottas was quicker than Lando Norris and George Russell in the closing stages, the Alfa Romeo boss told RACER he doesn’t want the team distracted by goals that could still move.

“I don’t want to set this kind of target,” Vasseur said. “Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’m just focused on my job and the job of the team. We have some updates in the pipeline that we will bring to Barcelona, and we have to do a proper job, be focused on ourselves, and then we’ll see where the others are.

“But I don’t want to fix the target to be P3, P5 or P7. Let’s do a good job and then we will see at the end of the season.”

All but one of Alfa Romeo’s points have been scored by Bottas so far, with the former Mercedes driver picking up his best result of 2022 with fifth place at Imola. However, Vasseur says it’s easier for both Bottas and the team to perform well together when the car is so competitive, and believes the true test of the partnership will be when it hits difficulties.

“When everything is going well, it’s easy to do a good job – for him, for us, for everybody,” he said. “We have to enjoy this period and this momentum but I hope this journey will continue like this and that we will extend the situation. But at the end of the day we will have tough times during the season and it’s at these times that we have to stay together and do a great job. I’m quite happy with the job done so far, but it’s much easier in this situation.”