F1 | Portuguese GP | From poleman to third, Bottas: “I just didn’t have the pace with medium tyres''
The Finn from Mercedes had a difficult race, due to some issues with the choice of the wrong tyres set.
The Portuguese Grand Prix ended in a disappointing way for Valtteri Bottas. The Finn had a super Saturday, placing on the top of the pole but had to be content with a finish on the podium, in third position. The problem was linked to a lack of pace on the medium compound.
The “Woodman” started in a great way either on the first lap and after the restart, catching Lewis Hamilton off-guard but he was a bit unlucky and faced a wrong strategy on the pit-stop. After he pit-stopped and put on the medium compound, he found himself to be slower.
I support, along with my fellow F1 drivers the #enoughisenough campaign this weekend. We support the call for social media platforms to act responsibly and users to act respectfully.
— Valtteri Bottas (@ValtteriBottas) April 30, 2021
Online abuse and hate must stop.#VB77 #EnoughIsEnough @F1 @MercedesAMGF1 pic.twitter.com/B5JStYy51U
“When you start from pole position you have only one target for the race – the Finn said – And that is to win the race. It didn’t happen today so I’m disappointed. I don’t really know, in the first stint why I didn’t quite have the pace, I felt everything in terms of the race start, restart, everything was good from my side but I could see quite quickly in the race that, with the mediums, I just didn’t have pace like Lewis and Max had. And I have no idea why, I don’t have the explanation.”
Bottas explained he was happy with the hard compound and did not expect the mediums to slow down the pace – “It was better on the hard tyre, at some point I was catching Max and then I had an issue with one sensor. I started to lose power and lost like 5 seconds to Max and that was it. The first lap it was pretty bad, but we knew the warm-up with the hard was going to be tricky but afterwards. Once I got heat in tyres it was actually not bad and better than with the medium but lots of things to look at, to analyse and learn from in the next few days before starting to focus for next week, for the next race.”
That’s precisely on the next race that Bottas has to focus on, as the Finn needs to find back the pace he had during the qualifying.
