Lowndes recounts Bottas' sideways Supercars cameo
Craig Lowndes warned Valtteri Bottas that a Supercar ‘moves around’ — and that’s exactly how the Formula 1 star treated his Adelaide cameo.
Bottas sampled a Bathurst-winning Holden VF Supercar at last month’s Adelaide Motorsport Festival.
The Alfa Romeo F1 driver shared the Adelaide Parklands Circuit with Lowndes, who drove a former Paul Morris Motorsport VE Commodore.
Bottas wrung the neck of the Tekno Autosports Holden, and did burnouts as he came to grips with the rear-happy car.
Lowndes also sat down with Bottas in an interview for Supercars.com at the former site of the Australian Grand Prix.
Prior to the laps, Lowndes explained how the cars behave, given Bottas is used to a completely different driving experience.
Notably, Bottas resorted to left-foot braking as he grappled with the 650bhp beast — and Lowndes was impressed by the Finn’s quick learning.
“I said to him, ‘The cars move around a bit’,” Lowndes told Supercars.com.
“Gear levers, sway bars, brake bias, and actually having a third pedal, which is the clutch — he’s not used to that.
“You look at the footage, he was left-foot braking.
“Once he got used to how much lock he had, [he learned] how much he could get the thing sideways.
“One thing he said when he got out of the car was, ‘It’s a good drift car!’"
In a sit-down interview with Fox Sports' Jess Yates, Bottas cited the noise of the car as key to his experience.
The 10-time Grand Prix winner was also coy over his prospects of racing in the Bathurst 1000, stating he still had life in his F1 career yet.
“It was great,” Bottas said.
“For a long time, I’d wanted to try one.
“The initial reaction was it’s a really raw race car, in terms of the sound, you feel all the vibrations.
“From a driver’s point of view, it was nice and reactive, and easy to get into and control it.
“I had good fun, a bit of drifting and donuts.”
The 2023 Repco Supercars Championship will resume at the Bosch Power Tools Perth SuperSprint on April 28-30.
The 2023 F1 season will also continue on the same weekend with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.
