Bottas did not have a weekend to remember in Australia, slipping to the 15th position on the starting grid following his crash during qualifying.
While Bottas was happy with how the car behaved for most parts of the weekend, he was unhappy with the overheating issues whilst starting in midfield, one’s that forced him to backoff on multiple occasions.
Using ‘backing off’ as a method to cool down the Mercedes package hurt Bottas big time, as he was already driving on a circuit that did not quite encourage overtaking.
“It was a bit of a frustrating day” said Bottas
“I got some points, but not as many as I was hoping for, even starting 15th on the grid.
“We had a good car, it felt just like in qualifying, the team did a really good job on that. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t make anything out of it because it is so difficult to overtake on this track.
“I also struggled a bit with overheating issues on the engine when I was following other cars, so I had to back off many times. It’s been a disappointing weekend and certainly not an ideal first race, but we still have 20 races to go.
“We need to learn from this weekend and try again in two weeks in Bahrain.” he added.
Toto Wolff was worried about Bottas’ confidence after the crash in qualifying and conceded that the race was always going to be a frustrating one, with him starting from the 15th position on the grid.
“On Valtteri’s side, we knew this would be a tough race to make up much ground. The margins between teams are closing up and this is one of the most difficult circuits to overtake on in the entire season. He made three passes on track and benefited from the VSC too, but then was stuck in a DRS train in the final laps.” Wolff said.
Bottas hopes everything would get better in Bahrain, a circuit where he could start in the top 5 and maybe end on the podium.
