Valtteri Bottas believes the Monaco Grand Prix will be one of Alfa Romeo’s strongest venues of the year and he has “big hopes” after a competitive run in Spain.

Alfa Romeo brought a large number of upgrades to Barcelona and they paid off, with Bottas running competitively in fourth before fading to sixth on a two-stop strategy. Given the signs of how quick the car was on Sunday, the Finn is excited to see what is possible at Monaco, where he feels the new parts will have an even bigger impact.

“At some points of the race our pace was actually pretty strong, so definitely it was crucial to get those upgrades, because we’re going to need that big rear wing next week,” Bottas said.

“It’s nice that we can battle with the big teams at times, and we also seem to have a pretty good gap for the cars behind. We made really good progress (last) weekend and that’s thanks to the upgrades. Also, this type of track doesn’t play to our strengths, so I think we could be better next week.

“I really believe it will suit our car strengths pretty well, so I’ve got big hopes for the next weekend. I’m thinking it should be one of the best tracks in the calendar for our car. For sure the upgrades we brought for (last) weekend will also help us there, and with a nice big rear wing, we should be good in Monaco.”

When Charles Leclerc retired and Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton both hit trouble, Bottas admitted he was dreaming of a bigger result than sixth in Spain. But while it didn’t work out, he feels it was worth Alfa Romeo sticking with its risky strategy given the buffer it had to the midfield.

“When you are in those positions and things are going smoothly and you see things happening to other cars you are thinking ‘OK, it could be my day!’. But strategy-wise we took a bit of a risk, we left the last stint to be very long but in the end it was too long, the tires died towards the end.

“But we tried. We had the chance to choose: are we going to be the best of the rest, or are we going to try something more? So we tried something different and it didn’t work out, but the risk was pretty minimal and there was not that much threat from behind.

“Podium, no, just not quite enough pace. But maybe with the issues Lewis had at the end, if we had a little bit shorter last stint it could have been possible. But anyway, it’s still good points.”