“This has gone from bad to worse to dreadful in the space of 40 laps”– A day to forget for Valtteri Bottas as Mexican GP turns out to be a mostly downhill roller-coaster

Valtteri Bottas had a disappointing Mexican Grand Prix. A day to forget for the Finn as Murphy’s Law chooses to make an example out of the Mercedes driver.

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, according to the cynical Murphy’s Law. Bottas had a Mexican GP he would love to forget as soon as possible.

Starting the race from pole was always a challenge for Bottas as the risk of giving others a row would be forever looming. Sadly, that is exactly what happened.

As the lights went out, Bottas started off decent but ended up giving Red Bull’s Max Verstappen a good enough slipstream to snatch P1 away from the Mercedes driver. He lost the lead before going into the very first corner.

Also read:  Christian Horner reveals Red Bull action plan against pole-sitter Mercedes for Mexican Grand Prix race

However, the loss of position was the least of his worries as a bit of nudge from McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo caused Bottas to spin before turning into turn 2. Further commotion at turn 2 caused Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda’s car to contact an Alfa Romeo. This contact resulted in a Tsunoda DNF. 

The DNF brought a silver lining in an otherwise pitch-black cloud for Bottas, resulting in a safety car. The safety car meant that Bottas did not get separated from the pack for too long despite the spin. The safety car also helped Ricciardo as he could pit for a new front wing after the contact with Bottas ended up wrecking his previous wing.

But wait, there’s more from Valtteri Bottas

When the race restarted, Bottas was right at the back along with Ricciardo, who, courtesy of the new wing he had put on his car, was able to put up a fight. This fight proved to be a mammoth task for Bottas as he was now stuck behind Ricciardo for a whopping 39 laps until he decided to pit.

Just when Bottas thought he might catch some respite from the frustration of the race so far, he suffered an agonisingly slow pit-stop as the Mercedes mechanics struggled to remove one of his front tyres. 

While Red Bull performed lightning-fast two-second pitstops for both their drivers, Bottas’ pit-stop lasted almost 12 seconds. The slow stop meant he lost any chance of a gap where he may undercut Ricciardo and ultimately stuck behind the Australian driver once more.

Overall, the race was a forgettable one for the soon-to-be Alfa Romeo driver. The only sliver of redemption Bottas got was the fastest lap which he stole from Verstappen. Sadly, even that was a hollow victory as he didn’t get any points for it since he was outside of the top 10 finishing the race in P15.

From starting on the pole to ending up with no points, Brazil could not come any sooner for Bottas.