Valtteri Bottas let his disappointment towards Mercedes known, after finishing third in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Valtteri Bottas had a great start to the week after Mercedes confirmed the Finn would be racing for them for the 2021 season as well. To make it even better, he finished in pole position in qualifying, ahead of his champion teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Bottas was very confident heading into the race, as he looked to catch up on Hamilton in the Drivers’ Standings. But it was the Red Bull of Max Verstappen instead which turned out to be the dampener for him.
Verstappen started the race from fourth in the grid, and yet managed to win the race. Red Bull’s pit stop strategy worked to the tee, while Mercedes was found lacking in it. Valtteri highlighted this before stepping on to the podium, to take the trophy for finishing third.
“Very frustrating obviously, starting from pole and finishing third is not ideal. I think as a team, we were sleeping at some point when Max managed to get ahead of us, and my strategy was far, far from ideal.”
“So lots to learn from today. There was a chance to keep up with Max, but as soon as I started to push towards the end, the tyres just fell apart.”
Valtteri Bottas says that Mercedes was caught napping with a less than ideal strategy in the #F170 GP, but team principal Toto Wolff says the win was never on given how much faster the Red Bull was able to go.https://t.co/cMmGocmFXB
— F1i (@F1icom) August 9, 2020
Tyres blistering issues on the Mercs
Bottas also highlighted the blistering on his tyres to be one of the causes for the Mercs losing out on Verstappen. This was bound to be a problem at Silverstone today, where temperatures soared beyond 40 degree Celsius. He, however, concluded by adding that Mercedes will learn from it, and come back strong later this week in Barcelona.
“It was a blistering in the tyres today for us, and seems like Red Bull had none, so they clearly had an edge over them. The tyres just overheat, so it is basically boiling.”
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“You get holes in the tyre, and then you just lose grip. Once you start to have blisters in tyres, you just lose cornering grip, and you go slower and slower. We’ll move on. Of course, a disappointing day, but we move on.”
