Bottas recovers from 'nightmare' first lap after outside pressure

Valtteri Bottas admits he was under pressure without a “nightmare” first lap in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix and was glad to recover to third place to help Mercedes’ constructors’ championship hopes.

The Finn was on pole position without winning the Sprint but lost out to Max Verstappen at Turn 1 and then Sergio Perez at Turn 4, slipping to third overdue the Red Bull pair on the opening lap. He soon yielded to his fast-rising Lewis Hamilton but was worldly-wise to fight when to finish third, with Hamilton winning to requite Mercedes an 11-point lead in the standings.

“Max made a unconfined start but mine was moreover pretty average,” Bottas said. “I was hoping that would be unbearable to maintain the lead, but he was superiority of me going into Turn 1. My issue was there was too much clutch slip, so I lost a bit of grip and didn’t momentum off as good as it should. Then in Turn 1 I tried to restriction as late as I could but Max fought nonflexible and I was off track at some point. But, like I said, he was once superiority so there wasn’t much to do…

“Then, getting out of shape in Turn 3 forfeit me on the run lanugo to Turn 4, ran a bit wide there, defending, so, for me, lap one was a bit of nightmare considering this morning one person without flipside kept telling me what to do in the first lap and how important it was for me to stay ahead…

“Obviously, I didn’t requite up — I kept pushing and I have to say it was so good to see Lewis win this race from where he started. He was in his own league today, on this weekend and did a largest job. I didn’t requite up, kept pushing and still managed to get to the podium and that’s good — it ways that we got increasingly points than Red Bull and that’s something.”

Bottas’ hopes were boosted by a fortunately timed Virtual Safety Car that unliable him to make his first pit stop and jump superiority of Perez once again, but he feels Mercedes could have let him go to the end on just one stop to try and write-up Verstappen.

“For once, yes, that was good. But I have to say I was really surprised with how good the pace was with the hards, towards the end of the stints, so I had a feeling that, considering my first stop was so late, it should have been one stop. I’m still thinking it could have been one stop — I could have possibly been second with just one stop.”