This launch went thoroughly into the pants: Valtteri Bottas believes that he has gone through the weak first few Hundred meters of a possible victory through the cloth. (Formula 1 in 2020 in the Live-Ticker!) “With a good Start, the victory would have been possible, but he was bad,” he says.
Ultimately, the bad Start is a direct result of the Qualifying error at turn 12. From the dirty side from the start, he fell directly into the cross-fire of Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll, who were from the clean side in positions three and five left.
Finn in the Sandwich
“The effect was even worse, because if you start at the front [first series], getting the vehicles behind you a wind shadow,” explains the Finn, who has missed the clear best car in the field, the Top 2 in the race for the fourth Time in a row.
“First of all, I tried to pull to the left to catch the wind shadow of Lewis [Hamilton], but Max was already there. Then I wanted to move to the right, over to cover the inside track, but one of the Racing Points [Stroller] was already there. Then I had prior to the curve 1 of the car’s interior and exterior next to me. Suddenly, I was in the Sandwich.”
Verstappen went past with a late braking point around the outside. Stroll managed to put the brakes on almost the same height at the same time as Bottas and went through then, because he was on the inside. Critics will say: Bottas has let boil. Nico Rosberg taking his Mercedes-successor a “weakness”.
But why he got away so poorly? “I don’t know, we need to look at and analyze,” he concludes. “We will look at everything we get in the Finger, in order to understand it. Data, Videos and all that.”
So was already on the first kilometers clear that he did not know in regards to the world Cup, only damage limitation would operate: “All how difficult this route is, if you lose two places at the Start. We have tried everything. The Pace was good and the tyres have longer than one would expect. But for me, it is a disappointing day.”
Medium is clearly better than Soft
But why it does not even enough for second place, although Bottas for the final spurt of extra soft tyres, got, while Verstappen was on the Medium of on-the-go? “The reason was that the soft tyre didn’t work as expected”, says Toto Wolff to ‘Sky’.
“I think if we had given him a Medium, he would have been open-minded with the fresher tires to Max and give him at least a fight supplied. So Mercedes Bottas in repeated shortly before the end again with fresh medium, to get at least the fastest lap.
A little typical step for risk minimizer Wolff. But this time he felt sure enough: “There has been no risk. The cars behind him were about 50 seconds back. Lewis couldn’t make the [attack on the fastest lap], because his tyres were worn.”
“It was not quite clear whether it would somebody else, such as the Racing Points. But I think that they had a Free pit stop. You never know, and we had a big lead. Since we have decided to make fresh tires on it and go to the fastest lap.” The additional point can be but little comfort to them about the loss of placement points.
This article was written by Heiko Stritzke, Co-author: Christian Nimmervoll
*The post “Valtteri Bottas: With a good Start I could win,” will be published by Motorsport-Total.com. Contact with the executives here.
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